Qass 




Rnnk -^ VtT 



SOCIETY IN ROME 



UNDER ' ' 



THE C^SARS. 



By WILLIAM RALPH INGE, m.a., 



Fellow of King's College, Cambkidge, au© 
Aesista-nt Mastee at Etou, 



9 

1.1 



NEW YORK: 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, 

1888. 






P«mTlNG AND EOOKBlNOma COMPAKY, 
HEW YORK. 



P E E P A B, 



This Essay obtained the "Hare Prize" at Cam- 
bridge in 1886, the subject chosen by the Exami- 
ners being "The Social Life of Rome in the ist 
Century, a.d." It is now pubhshed with a few 
alterations and corrections, but nearly in its 
original form. 

W. R. I. 
Jan. 1888. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

PAGE. 
Scope of the Essay ..•••»•• ix 

List of Mod^n Autliorities used •■»«>« sii 



CHAPTEE L 

RELIGION. 

Political Character of Roman Religion • • • • 1 
Legal Formulism in Religion • • • • • e 2 
Belief in a Future Life .••»«•• 3 

Foreign Elements *•••«••• 5 

Type of Character fostered .••*«.• 7 
Causes of Decline . .•••••t«8 

Its Extent estimated » , , 10 

Attitude of Society towards Divination, &c. • • .12 
Faith in the Supernatural still strong . . , , .15 

Superstitions id. 

Reaction in favour of Positive and Emotional ReHgioii • 18 
Growing Influence of Oriental Type of Faith , , , 19 
Summary •*•••.•••• 20 



iv CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER n. 

PHILOSOPHY. 

PAGE. 

Social Lnportance of Moral PMosophv at Eome • • 22 
Keo- Stoicism at Rome in tlie First Century , , ,23 

Its Influence for Good 24 

Its Defects 26 

Seneca , , , , , 28 

Causes of Unpopularity of PMlosophy , , , , " 29 

Social Position of Philosophers ...•». 81 



CHAPTER III. 

MORALITY. 

Divisions of the Subject : Integrity , , , , .33 

Dishonesty and Love of Money ,35 

" CajHatio " id. 

General Dishonesty and Corruption . . , , ,38 
Humanity. Nature of Roman Cruelty , . , ,39 

Awakening Sentiment of Humanity 41 

Treatment of Slaves in First Century id. 

Punishment of Criminals ...,,,. 45 

Street Bullies 46 

Eehef of the Poor and Unfo^^anate • . . . ,48 
Kindness to Animals ...,,.., 51 

The Gladiatorial Shows 53 

Purity. Corruption of the Age 61 

Exceptions 63 

Improved Conception of Morality visible , , . .64 

Murder and Homicide .67 

Destruction of Infant Life , . • . . . ,69 

Suicide ••.... 70 

Conclusion 73 



CONTENTS, 



CHAPTEE IV. 



THE GOVERNMENT AND SOCIETY. 



Connection between Politics and Social Life 
The Government in general not intrusive . 

Exceptions 

Worship of the Emperors 
Liberty of Speech and Pasquinade 
Unreality a Consequence of Despotism 
Feeling of Society towards the Empire. 
KepubHcan Modesty of the Emperors 
'Idea of Subjection familiar . 
Unity of Civilised World a Gift of th< 
The Provinces gained by it . 
Municipal Patriotism . 
The Empire satisfied the Wants of the Majority 



Conquest 



Empire 



PAGE, 
75 
77 
78 
79 
82 
84 
85 
86 
id. 
88 
89 
90 - 
91 



CHAPTER V. 

LITERATURE AND ART. 



Cramping Effect of Despotism on Literature . , , 93 

System of Education : Its Kesults 96 

Straining after Effect , . 96 

Characteristics of different Periods : The Julian Era . . id. 

The Flavian Era 99 

Literary Habits 1 03 

Eeaction in favour of ante-Augustaa Writers . , , 104 

Art not indigenous at Kome , 105 

Dilettantism in Art , , « , , . , .107 

Sculpture . . , . , 109 

Painting .*..«..,.. 114 

Music ..«,.,,,,., 116 



cox TEXTS. 



CHAPTEE VI. 

GRADES OF SOCIETY. 

The Imperial Honseliold liy 

The Senate .122 

TheEquites 127 

Professions : The Bar 129 

Teaching 133 

Literature 137 

The Army 139 

Fanning ..••«».... 110 

Medicine id. 

Trades Ui 

Clients 147 

Eecipients of the State Dole ...... 150 

B^gars 151 

Aliens. Italians. ProTincials ...... 152 

Freelmen 155 

Orientals 157 

Slaves 159 

Ho-n- ^rexe Slaves supplied ? 162 

Kidnapping 163 

Prices of Slaves 166 

Treatment of Slaves « • 168 

CHAPTEE rn. 
EDUCATION, ^L\RRL\GE, &c. 

Pafria Pot^as 172 

Education . , , 173 

Marriage .... * 178 

Women 180 

CeHbacy 182 

FWeral Ceremcmi^ .•«•••». 183 



CONTENTS. 



vu 



CHAPTEE Yin. 


DAILY LIFE. 


PAGE. 


Necessity of describing only the Upper Classes , , .190 


Injustice thus done to the Eomans • 






, 192 


Early Morning. The Salutations 










. 194 


The Morning Hours . , . 










195 


The Dinner 










. 196 


Conversation, &c. .... 










» 199 


Drinking . . . • . 










202 


Life in the Country 










, 203 


Habits of Spurinna and the Elder PUn 


y 




1 


• 


, id. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

AMUSEMENTS. 



Political necessity of Public Amusements • • • • 206 

Frequency and importance of Spectacles • , , , 208 

Gladiatorial Games ........ 209 

How the Combatants were procured ..... 211 

Training of the Gladiators ....... 212 

Scene in the Amphitheatre •••.... 215 

The Circus 216 

Factions of the Circus . . . . . . . .219 

Popularity of the Jockeys . * « . • » . . 220 

The Theatre 222 

The Farce and the Mime ,...•.. 223 

Political Allusions ...••..« 225 

The Pantomime . . , , , . . . . 228 

a 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 
Social Position of Actors ••»#,,, 229 
Athletic Contests . , . , , , , ^ ,231 
Public Baths • • • 9 • . , , , 232 
Watering Places ...,,,,,, 235 
Games at Ball •••«♦«,,, 236 
Field-Sports . , , , , , , ^ ,237 

• • • • • 238 



Gaines of Chanco 



CHAPTEB X. 

LUXURY. 

The First Century of the Empire the most Luxurious , 240 

Kature of Eoman Civilisation •...,, 241 

Magnificence of Buildings .»•,,,, 243 

Private Houses ••••»♦.,, 245 

Furniture . . • , 254 

I>ress 258 

Luxury of the Table 262 

Considerations on this Subject ••••,, 266 

E^sume of the Chapter •.••«., 270 

Conclusion . « e © t • « 8 . . 274 



mTEODUCTOEY, 

The manners and customs of the Romans at the 
time of their greatest power and civihsation have 
naturally been made the subject of much research 
and many speculative treatises. They have been 
reconstructed in the minutest details from the 
evidence of those ancient authorities which time 
has spared us, and from the relics which ex- 
cavation has continually been bringing to light. 
Thanks to the labours of scholars and archaeo- 
logists in Germany and elsewhere, we can picture 
to ourselves many scenes of Roman life with 
as much clearness and accuracy as those which 
w^e see around us. The dress which the Roman 
citizen, wore, the structure and furniture of the 
house in which he lived, the library in which he 
studied, the banquets in which he shared, have all 

b 



INTRODUCTORY. 



been described with a minuteness which leaves but 
little to be added. With equal accuracy and 
exhaustiveness, the names and functions of the 
different slaves, the ceremonies attending mar- 
riages and funerals, the position of the various 
buildings of public resort at Rome, have been 
discussed and determined, till there seems to be 
but little left for ingenuity to effect in the work 
of reconstruction, except by compelling the earth 
to yield up more of the treasures which she still 
hides beneath her surface. 

To collect or endeavour to add to these details 
is not the purpose of this treatise. Such an at- 
tempt, if not utterly vain, would necessarily destroy 
the proportion of the parts, and encumber the pages 
with a mass of citation. Details of this kind can 
only be introduced in an essay of modest dimen- 
sions, where they seem required for the purpose of 
illustrating some larger feature of the subject. For 
the most part generalizations must take the place 
of minute description, and the subjective side of 
civilisation in the first century occupy more atten- 



INTRODUCTORY. xi 



tion than the objective. If the really characteristic 
points in that civilisation can be seized, and the 
most important phenomena given their due pro- 
minence, the object of the essay will have been 
attained. 

The scheme of arrangement which we have 
chosen will be easily understood from the head- 
ings of the chapters. Religion, Philosophy, and 
Morality, treated, as far as possible, in their social 
aspects, occupy the first place. Then follows a 
short chapter on the social influence of Imperialism 
in the first century. The Literature and Art of the 
the period are next considered, after which we 
have endeavoured to analyse Roman society into 
its component parts, discussing briefly the various 
grades into which the community was divided. 
Then descending more into detail, we have de- 
scribed the life of the individual, first tracing, in out- 
line, the ordinary course of a Roman's career from 
the cradle to the grave, and then giving some 
account of the daily habits of the best -known 
sections of society. Public amusements form the 



IXTRODrCTORY. 



subject of the next chapter, and the last contains a 
consideration of the luxun^ of the wealthy classes. 
We subjoin a list of the chief modem works 
which we have consulted. 

BecTier. Gallus. 

Capes. Early Empire. Stoicism. 

Chamjpagny. Les Cesars. 

Covlanges. La Cit^ Antique. 

jyureau de la Malle. L'Jlconomie Politique des Romama. 

Freeman. Essays, vol. 2. 

Furneanx. Tacitus' Annals, Introd. 

FriedVdnder, Siitengescbiclite Koms. 

Froude. Short Studies, 3, 

Gibhon. Decline and Fall. 

GvM and Koner. Life of Greeks and Eomana 

LecTiy. History of European Morals. 

Marquardt. Das Privatleben der Romer. 

Merivale. History. 

Seeley. Essays. 

Wallon. L'Esclavagc dans I'Antiqultd. 



CHAPTER I. 

— ♦ — 

E E L I G I N. 

The national religion of the Roman people was a 
part of the polity of the republic. The gods were 
among the possessions of the burgess body, and 
their protection was one of the privileges which 
citizenship conferred. As was natural, the abode 
of the divinities bore a close resemblance to the 
earthly city under their care. Every natural 
phenomenon, every mental conception, had its 
counterpart in the world of gods. These gods 
were not, like those of the Greeks, transformed 
into living personalities, with definite characters 
and varied histories. They were vaguely con- 
ceived abstractions, which never acquired palpable 
substance. Equally removed from anthropomor- 
phism and from mysticism, the Roman religion 
never developed either a mythology or a secret 
cult, nor did the intellectual or philosophic spirit 
exercise itself greatly in the manufacture of reli- 

A 



SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



gious symbolism. The gods remained dimly con- 
ceived personifications of their eponymous quali- 
ties, realities indeed to the many, but not possessed 
of any attributes to captivate the imagination or 
to kindle moral enthusiasm. Neither imagination 
nor enthusiasm were congenial to the Roman 
spirit, and that spirit vv^as faithfully reproduced in 
the national belief. The relations between man 
and God were conceived in a thoroughly practical 
and utilitarian, not to say commercial spirit. The 
legal formulism, which it is the pride of Rome to 
have developed, invaded from the earliest date the 
province of religion. The moral law as promul- 
gated under the sanction of religion resembled a 
code rather than deductions from a principle. The 
service of the gods generally consisted in a kind of 
bargaining, in which the worshipper expected to 
receive full value, generally m kind, for every act 
of homage and devotion. It was possible occa- 
sionally to overreach a benignant deity, and on the 
other hand it was necessary for the worshipper to 
avoid any mistakes in form which might enable 
the god to evade his part of the contract. This 
explains the function of the pontiffs, who acted as 
professors of spiritual jurisprudence ; not as media- 



' THE OLD FAITH. 



tors between the contracting parties^ but as ad- 
visers retained by the human suppliant. Unworthy 
as this conception of reHgion is, it was not without 
real usefuhiess to the Roman community. The 
gods were not less truly believed in because their 
natures were dimly conceived, and their attributes 
of a not very exalted character. The offender 
against the moral law was felt to be severely 
punished by the simple anathema which declared 
him sacer, and no longer under the protection of 
the Capitoline Jupiter. Though in itself a cold and 
uninspiring faith, it derived strength and warmth 
from its connection with the civic body. It was 
no galling chain, but a veritable alliance that 
bound the Roman church to the Roman state. 
Religion found its noblest expression in patriotism, 
and patriotism its sanction and support in religion. 
The doctrine of a future life, so important as a 
moral influence in all societies, shared at Rome 
the vagueness which characterised the other reli- 
gious behefs of the people. No legends of heroes 
and demigods bridged over the chasm between 
mortality and the world of spirits.* The existence 

* Sucli stories as afterwards appeared bear evident traces of 
their foreign origin. 

A 2 



SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



of the soul after death was held rather as a theory 
than as a dogma* ; and we seldom find it used in 
an argument without a parenthetical apology such 
as " if the common belief be true." Such a half- 
hearted faith could have little effect on life or 
conduct. We should remember, however, that the 
educated persons, whose writings have come do^vn 
to us, are not fair representatives of the mass of 
the people. The righteous indignation with which 
Lucretius attacks the fables about hell, current 
among the vulgar, seems to show that belief in a 
future punishment was strong enough to cause 
considerable trouble and unhappiness in the minds 
of many. It is indeed curious that, so far as belief 
in immortality existed at Rome, it acted not as an 
almost necessary consolation, as in modern Chris- 
tian societies, but as a gloomy and tormenting 
apprehension, the desire for continued existence 
being neutralised by the fear of Minos and Cer- 
berus. In other words, while our tendency is to 
dwell exclusively on the brighter side of the doc- 
trine, the ancients seem seldom to have sought 

* The remark of Champagny, "Pour lid" (the Koman) "rim- 
mortality de la famille et de la patrie rempla9ait I'immortalit^ 
de son ame," shews a profoimd comprehensiou of the spirit of 
Paoanism. 



FOREIGN INFLUENCES. 



pleasure or consolation in the anticipation of future 
happiness^ and to have vexed their souls by gloomy 
forebodings of the infernal regions. 

The Roman religion was not radically altered by 
the various foreign elements that became incor- 
porated with it. The gloomy faith of the Etrus- 
cans, the genial mythology of the Greeks, the 
fanatical mysticism of Asia, all left their mark on 
the liberal religion of the conquering republic, 
always ready to tolerate and find room for the 
various gods of the nations whom the sword of 
the legions had ejected from their homes. But so 
long as the Capitol remained the centre of Roman 
religion, and Romans were Romans by blood and 
not by adoption, the foundations of the national 
religion continued firm, and withstood the assaults 
of foreign divinities. Greek and oriental gods were 
allowed their places in heaven, as their votaries 
were permitted to reside at Rome, but conquest 
had discredited both alike, and gods as well as 
men were expected to acknowledge their superiors. 
In the case of Greece, indeed, the process of iden- 
tifying the two celestial companies won accept- 
ance, the identification being in some cases true, 
in others fictitious. But Jupiter Capitolinus re- 



SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



fused to array himself in the garb of Ol^onpian 
Zeus, nor did Venus Cloacina readily adapt herself 
to the character of Idalian Aphrodite. Still less 
could the Phrygian mother of the gods, with her 
mutilated priests and ecstatic orgies, find a place 
in the sober and dignified assemblage of Latin 
deities. Her worship, when at length it took root 
in Rome, found its congenial soil among the " step- 
sons of Italy," who were silently swamping the 
good old stock, and it was as a heresy ©r new reli- 
gion that it appeared, not as a part of the national 
faith. Pliant and liberal as that faith appeared, it 
was in reality conservative, unchanging, and in- 
capable of development. It flourished while its 
creators maintained their vigour and their national 
unity : it decayed when corruption and division 
had weakened that vigour and dissolved that 
imity : it flickered now and again with a sem- 
blance of vitality as Rome made fitful efforts to 
return to her former self; and it finally expired 
with the last throes of the sovereign nation, main- 
taining to the last that exclusive ci\ic character 
which had been its strength and was now its 
weakness. 

The type of character which this religion tended 



ROMAN " PIETASr 



to produce was rather dignified than attractive, 
rather admirable than amiable. The unselfish im- 
pulses, the self-sacrifice, which are the food of all 
religion, took the form of national esprit de corpSy 
and worked exclusively within that narrow limit. 
Humanity in the larger sense found hardly any 
place in the moral code. The sphere of duty was 
the state, and its miniature the family. Courage, 
self-devotion, industry, frugality, were practised or 
admired as civic virtues, conducive to the welfare 
of the community. Piety towards the gods and 
obedience to the magistrates were duties of the 
same kind. Marriage and education were public 
duties, to be performed in no self-regarding spirit. 
The result was a somewhat hard, but very strong 
national character. Duty was ever present, and 
asserted itself in every act of life. No doubt or 
conflict of motives was possible. Divided alle- 
giance could not be thought of while Jove and the 
city of Rome remained* to claim the service of the 
citizen : in life or in death the Roman belonged 
not to himself, but to the state. It was this that 
carried the Roman power over three continents, 

* Incolumi Jove et urbe Koma, Hor, The expression is MgUy 
cliaracteristic. 



SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME, 



and enabled the city on the Tiber to attain its 
unique position. Never since the fall of Paganism 
have the civic virtues shone out so brilliantly : 
never since^ perhaps, have religion and patriotism 
made so potent an alliance. 

The foregoing remarks will have indicated to 
some extent the causes of the decline of religion 
which marked the last century of the republic and 
the succeeding period. Moral enthusiasm was 
never excited by the national religion except in 
the form of patriotism, and the expansion of the 
empire had made patriotism a less absorbing prin- 
ciple than heretofore. Self-sacrifice seemed hardl)^ 
necessary, when Rome was already mistress of the 
world. The privileges of citizenship were now so 
apparent and so great that its obligations naturally 
fell into the background. The Roman no longer 
felt himself a member of a militant community ; 
he was the possessor of a rich inheritance, which 
his ancestors had won for him to enjoy. Thus the 
living spark which had kept alive the smouldering 
fire of Roman faith was nearly extinguished. It 
was certain that the unattractive dogmas which 
remained would not command much respect after 
it was gone. Nor was the prosperity of the Empire 



DECA Y OF FAITH. 9 

the only reason for the decay of patriotic faith. 
The constant influx of foreigners from every 
quarter of the world, especially from the East, 
was fatal to the national religion. Neither 
natural propensities nor tradition led these new- 
comers to embrace the religion of their conquerors. 
None but Romans could be faithful worshippers of 
the Roman gods. The old stock, an ever-decreas- 
ing minority, could make no stand against an 
invasion of aliens often intellectually their superiors, 
who brought with them not merely cosmopolitan 
indifference, but the powerful destructive force of 
Greek philosophy. Among the educated classes 
the combined influence of these two causes made 
rapid havoc of the old faith. The tendency to 
materialism was increased by the corrupt and 
licentious life that had become common through 
wealth and idleness. The moral sense, always 
restricted within narrow limits, was blunted by the 
institution of slavery and the other injustices of 
irresponsible power. In most cases the simple 
faith of former days was as completely obsolete as 
the frugal fare of the citizen-farmer. The belief in 
immortality was openly ridiculed. In Cicero's 
time hardly an old woman could be found, if we 



10 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

believe the writer, who trembled at the fables 
about the infernal regions.* Even boys, says 
Juvenal, disbelieve in the world of spirits.f The 
existence of the gods, according to these and 
other writers, was commonly treated as an open 
question, and one of not very great importance. 
The rites of religion were either neglected or per- 
formed in a perfunctory and contemptuous manner. 
The majority either denied moral obligation, or 
attached it to some system of philosophy. The 
old rehgion as a moral force seemed quite spent 
and gone. 

We must however be careful not to accept the 
statements of our authorities too strictly. The 
leading writers of any age are seldom the truest 
exponents of the beliefs of the masses. The 
attacks of freethought and philosophy do not 
readily reach the uneducated. Such expressions 
as those of Cicero and Juvenal above referred to, 
are often hastily made, and must be weighed with 
due caution. There are many indications that 
upon the lower classes at least religion still had a 
considerable hold. It is, perhaps, unsafe to lay 
too much stress on the very numerous monuments 

* Cic. de N. D. 2. 2. f Juvenal, S. 2. 149. 



VITALITY OF PAGANISM. 11 

that have been found expressing a behefin a future 
life^ for experience tells us that pious or kindly- 
insincerity haunts the tomb unblamed ; but it is 
fair to mention these as a set off against the 
inscriptions of ostentatious materialism and the 
vaunts of shallow philosophy. A more convincing 
proof of the abiding vitality of the old Polytheism 
is furnished by the power which it still possessed 
of assimilating new elements, drawn from the 
religions of the East and of barbarian countries. 
Even newly-created divinities from time to time 
appeared; but these were usually deceased or 
living emperors, who owed their elevation rather 
to flattery than to faith. The obstinate resistance 
which Paganism offered to Christianity has also 
been justly quoted as indicating a firmer hold on 
the old religion than we generally attribute to its 
later votaries. The struggle between the two 
religions cannot be said to have begun in earnest 
till after the close of our period ; but we cannot 
form a fair estimate of the state of opinion in the 
first century without drawing upon later as well as 
earlier history. The tenacity of the old beliefs 
when brought into contact with Christianity is 
often remarkable, and still more so is the attitude 



12 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

of the earlier Christians to Paganism. Jupiter, and 
Venus, and Apollo were commonly regarded not 
as fictions but as really existing evil spirits, by no 
means absolutely powerless. Even Pagan divina- 
tion was believed to be a genuine intercourse with 
the spiritual world. Hence, to do homage to an 
idol was an actual treason to the Supreme Being. 
These indications shew that positive faith was by 
no means a thing of the past among the Pagans of 
the empire. The subject which we shall now enter 
upon ought to give us a more definite idea of the 
state of religion in our period. 

The belief that the will of the gods was in many 
different ways communicated to mankind formed 
a very important part of the religion both of 
Greece and Rome. In Greece the oracles, at 
Rome the augurs and haruspices, in both the 
astrologers and interpreters of dreams, were 
believed to have the power of explaining the 
intentions and wishes of heaven to men. Por- 
tents and prodigies were vouchsafed, it was 
believed, as warnings in times of danger. Appari- 
tions of the gods in human form were authenticated 
in various places and times. Miracles of healing 
and exhibitions of supernatural power were not 



BELIEF IN DIVINATION. 13 

unknown. In short, to the pious or superstitious 
Pagan, the gods were constantly making their 
presence felt in the daily order of things, and it 
became the believer to be always watchful for the 
heaven-sent signs which might have been intended 
by a gracious providence to save him from ruin or 
lead him to fortune. 

The attitude which the educated world adopted 
towards these widespread superstitions is very re- 
markable. On the one hand the historians duly 
chronicle every prodigy or monstrous birth that 
they find related in their authorities, so that these 
absurdities fill a space in their works which it 
would be difficult to parallel in any other secular 
histories. On the other, there is no lack of 
the most contemptuous disbelief in the whole 
system, expressed in no doubtful terms, by the 
contemporaries of the historians who apparently 
attach so much importance to it. On the one 
hand we find Celsus, in the era of the Antonines, 
basing his chief argument against Christianity on 
the numerous and well-attested miracles of Pagan- 
ism, and especially on the innumerable instances 
of fulfilled prophecies; while on the other Cicero 
in his work on Divination appeals with equal con- 



14 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

fidence to the facts of history on the other side, 
recalhng how Caesar crossed over into Africa in 
opposition to the auspices, and by so doing pre- 
vented his enemies from uniting against him, 
while his unsuccessful antagonist never failed to 
obey the warnings of the haruspices; and how 
throughout the civil war these predictions either 
remained unfulfilled, or were directty falsified.* 
We find the same ^vriter, himself an augur, quoting 
with approval Cato's saying that he wondered how 
one augur could meet another without laughing, 
and Pliny the Younger sarcastically suggested that 
apparently many dreams are meant to be inter- 
preted by contraries.f Innumerable instances of 
the most absurd and childish superstitions are 
recorded even of men of strong sense and practical 
ability, while at the same time we might quote 
passages condemning these superstitions in an 
enlightened manner. 

With regard to the historians, some allowance 
must be made for the idea of history then pre- 
vailing. The ancient writers of history endea- 
voured to be at once dramatic and didactic. The 
narrative of the past was often made a peg on 

* Cic. de Div. 2. 21. f ^^'^- ^P- 1- ^^' 



ATTITUDE OF HISTORIANS. 15 

which to hang the author's rhetorical displays and 
his views of morality and the economy of the 
world. Both these purposes were in a measure 
served by the introduction of the supernatural, 
which can be easily made picturesque, and, to the 
believer, instructive. Prodigies were equally useful 
to point a moral and to adorn a tale. Livy admits 
that the number of these miracles varies exactly 
with the credulity of the people among whom 
they occur;* but he excuses himself in another 
place by saying that when he is narrating ancient 
events his mind ^Hakes somehow an ancient cast,"t 
which makes such stories seem appropriate and 
pleasing, and that it does not seem to him right 
to pass over with contempt events which the good 
men of former days believed and preserved. And 
if Livy, a writer of a poetical and uncritical tem- 
perament, feels it necessary to apologise for tran- 
scribing the records of portents, we are not 
surprised to find that in Tacitus the mentions of 
them are few and far between. For such as do 
occur custom may perhaps be partly responsible; 
and we in our own day must have often noticed the 
peculiar half-respectful, half-contemptuous defer- 

* Liv. 24. 10. t I^iv. 43. 13. 



16 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

ence which philosophers and freethinkers in general 
show to popular superstitions, a deference which 
approaches what used to be called chivalr}\ 
Modem histories famish many parallels to Tacitus 
in this respect. 

It would however be a great mistake to suppose 
that disbelief in the supernatural was the rule 
among the educated classes. In some form or 
other the natural tendency of the human mind 
to such beliefs generally asserted itself. Religion 
had never been a great moral force in itself at 
Rome, and now its alliance with patriotism was 
being dissolved : nothing remained but lifeless 
ritual and the m^Tiad forms of superstition, which 
only usurp the name of religion. It was however 
in the form of superstition that Paganism now 
chiefly lived on. It is here, and here only, that we 
find the fear of the gods influencing human action. 
The man of pleasure, who scoffed at the idea of 
moral retribution for the grossest of his crimes, 
trembled at a serpent in his path, and paid an 
Oriental astrologer to read his fortune. An echpse 
still caused a panic in the Imperial legions. The 
despot, who trampled without scmple on ever}^ 
law, human or divine, was accustomed to crawl 



PREVALENCE OF SUPERSTITION, 17 

under his bed at the sound of thunder.* To 
"enquire into the years" of the emperors hfe 
was high treason. Every form of spiritualism had 
its hierophants. Rome swamied with quacks and 
impostors from every corner of the empire, who 
made a handsome profit out of the creduHty of their 
masters. The women were even more addicted 
to these absurdities than the men, and Roman 
ladies were often the slaves of an astute priest or 
astrologer. Scarcely anyone was strong-minded 
enough to reject the whole mass of superstition. 
Even Pliny the Elder considered that there might 
be something in dreams, and the majority never 
thought of questioning their truth as predictions 
of the fature. Incapable for the most part of 
influencing any action for good, this melancholy 
substitute for religion continued to vex the souls 
of men and women, and divert their thoughts 
from any impulse towards a higher life. It was 
the fate of Paganism thus to drift into dreary 
shallows when cut adrift from the anchor which 
had bound it to the citadel of Romulus. 

The anxious search for spiritual food sometimes 
led men to wander beyond the precincts of the 

* Suet. Cal. 2. 
B 



18 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Roman Olympus. Isis and Serapis already num- 
bered many votaries of both sexes in the first 
century. It was a common complaint that the 
gods of despised Eastern nations were usurping the 
honours of Capitoline Jove. Legislative enactments 
were called into play in the vain hope of stopping 
the advancing tide. Throughout the period alien 
worships came more and more into vogue, and were 
embraced wath an enthusiasm which contrasted pain- 
fully with the languid conformity of the orthodox. 
The causes of this movement lay far too deep to be 
touched by the legislator. For the last hundred 
and fifty years (I speak of the middle of our period) 
the dry ethics of Stoicism and the negations of 
Epicureanism had practically divided the Roman 
mind between them. We need not go into the 
causes, already partly discussed, which made a re- 
action in favour of positive and emotional religion 
natural and inevitable. It vdW be enough to men- 
tion the influence of Alexandria, the influx of 
Orientals into Rome, the decrease of the Roman 
stock, and the inherent inability of the systems 
above mentioned to meet the requirements of the 
human mind. These requirements seemed to be 
satisfied by the mystic religions of the East, which 



GROWING INFLUENCE OF THE EAST. n 

subordinated the intellect to the emotions, and 
were based not on reasoning but on ecstacy : which 
regarded the body as a disgrace or burden, and 
pleasure as an evil ; which substituted a new ideal 
for the civic virtues that had lost their cogency, 
and again held out the bright hope of a future life, 
which had been growing dimmer and fainter 
through the long period of hardness and indulgence. 
Like all other moral and social revolutions, this 
change began from the lower strata of society. 
The slaves, the poor, the unprivileged, the expa- 
triated, were the first to turn for consolation to the 
new source opened to them. Among them the mono- 
theistic creeds of the East first took root; among 
them Judaism made its prosel)rtes, and Christianity 
its earliest converts. But the movement was not 
long in extending itself to the rich and powerful. 
Already in our period we have indications which 
in the light of succeeding history we can read, as 
shewing the growing influence of Alexandria and 
Palestine. The gentleness which tempers the 
stoicism of Seneca, the almost feminine sweetness 
of Epictetus, the affection and resignation of 
Quintilian under domestic bereavement, the com- 
plaints in Juvenal of the spread of Jewish and 

B2 



20 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Oriental superstitions, the edicts banishing Jews 
from Rome, are signs of various kinds which might 
escape our notice if we had not later events to 
help us. With those events we need not hesitate 
to ascribe them to that influence which, even then 
at work and powerful, though obscure and little 
noticed, was at last to overthrow the temples of 
the Pagan gods, and establish Christianity as the 
religion of the Empire. 

To sum up briefly the results arrived at in this 
chapter, the national religion of Rome derived its 
force as a moral principle from its alliance with the 
civic spirit. That spirit from various causes had 
declined, and religion in consequence became a 
routine of barren ritual, or a vehicle of puerile 
superstition. Among the educated the prevailing 
tone was a careless Agnosticism, which tolerated 
religion as a serviceable instrument for guiding the 
vulgar mind, but was itself by no means exempt 
from the popular superstitions. The uneducated 
masses still retained their faith in the gods, but 
the influence of their religion on their morality 
was almost nil. A crowd of superstitions kept the 
spiritual world constantly in their minds, but in a 
manner that could exercise no wholesome influence 



SIGNS OF COMING CHANGE. 21 

on their character. In this unhappy condition men 
began to turn to the East, and to fall under the in- 
fluence of the mystical and ecstatic worships which 
were there indigenous. The moral revolution thus 
begun ramified first chiefly among the despised 
classes, but before the close of the first century 
had begun to attract educated minds whom the 
Grseco-Roman philosophies of the Stoa and of 
Epicurus could no longer satisfy. 



( 22 ) 



CHAPTER II. 



PHILOSOPHY. 

One of the consequences of the defective and 
unsatisfying character of Roman rehgion was the 
importance and prominence of moral philosophy. 
Men turned to Stoicism or Epicureanism to supply 
them with a rule of life which they could not find 
in the worship of the gods. So completely was 
that worship dissociated from ethical teaching, that 
it was left for philosophers to evolve and inculcate 
that important function of religion. The social 
influence of moral philosophy was therefore infi- 
nitely greater than at the present day, when the 
majority find in religion all the guidance that they 
need. 

Two systems of philosophy, Stoicism and Epicu- 
reanism, flourished at Rome in the first century. 
To these perhaps we should add the Neo-Pytha- 
gorean School, which ultimately gave birth to the 
New Platonism of Alexandria. It may, however, 



ROMAN STOICISM. 23 

be said that philosophy at Rome in the first 
century means Stoicism, so completely did the 
doctrines of Zeno — transplanted, not without modi- 
fication, into Roman soil — overshadow all other 
systems of ethics. Stoicism was in fact very well 
suited to the Roman temperament. Abandoning 
the transcendental part of Greek Stoicism, the 
Romans found in the austere renunciations and 
rigid dogmatism of the system a rule well suited 
to the hardness of their national temperament. 
The ideal Roman character, which still lived in 
theory, and was occasionally even now almost 
realised in a Thrasea or an Arria, was very much 
like that of the stoic " sage." Inflexible devotion 
to virtue, imperturbable serenity of temperament, 
contempt of worldly goods and misfortunes, justice 
to others without sympathy, were Roman qualities 
and stoic maxims : and even the stoic conception 
of the Deity — ^half monotheistic, half pantheistic, 
though it did not enter much into the Neo-Stoicism 
of Rome — was hardly alien to the spirit of Rom^an 
religion. But the constraining power which Stoicism 
exerted lay in its assertion of abstract right and 
duty, the duty of ^^ living according to nature," as 
they expressed it, that is, of fulfilling the law of 



24 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

our being, which is to follow virtue and virtue 
alone, ^' in scorn of consequence/' and to rise supe- 
rior to all the changes and chances of mortal life, 
which are not really evils, for ^' there is nothing bad, ' 
but thinking makes it so," except vice. It would 
be easy to illustrate the sublimity of this doctrine 
from the writings and actions of its votaries ; easy 
also to shew how attractive it must have been to 
men living under a corrupt despotism, where a good 
man had to be ^^a law unto himself," and inde- 
pendent of his surroundings for noble life and 
mental happiness. Stoicism was in fact a noble 
witness against some of the worst tendencies of 
the age. It was, in the first place, a standing pro- 
test against materialism. In a period when every- 
one hunted wealth and comfort ^vith a feverish 
activity, it declared that the sage alone is rich, 
happy, and powerful : that the millionaire on his 
banquet-couch may be in far worse case than the 
slave on the rack,* and that ever^^thing which the 
world deems valuable is aha(i>opov, indifferent, un- 
worthy of the attention of a wise man. Again, it 
necessarily tended to break down the barriers of 

* f' Jacere in convivio malum est, torqueri in eculeo bonum, si 
illlid turpiter hoc honeste fit." Sen. Ep. 71. 



GRANDEUR OF THE STOIC IDEAL. 25 

classes. The consistent Stoic must admit that his 
slaves may be his superiors, and cannot treat them 
as mere chattels. In its logical conclusion, Stoicism 
-4neant the natural equality of all mankind. Seneca 
is often led into expressions which imply this, and 
Epictetus in the true Christian tone says, "We 
are all brothers, because we are God's children." 
The growth of humanity in the latter half of the 
century, which will occupy us in part of the next 
chapter, and especially the increasing gentleness to 
slaves, was in no small degree the work of stoic 
philosophy. Lastly, Stoicism operated in placing 
before men a purer conception of God. Let us 
quote, first, Persius' energetic protest against the 
commercial view of sacrifice which we mentioned 
in the last chapter, 



** Compositmn jus fasqne animo, sanctosqne 
Mentis, et incoctum generoso pectus honesto. 
Hanc cedo ut admoveam templis, et farre litabo,"* 

and then refer to — we have not space to quote — 
the numerous and beautiful maxims of Seneca, 
which made Christian apologists claim him as 
"saepe noster." Shadowy and scarcely personal 
as the stoic deity was, his attributes were far 

• Pers. 2. ad nn. 



26 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

more divine than those of the objects of popular 
worship. 

Great as were the merits of Stoicism, its defects 
were equally great, and inseparable from its 
character. The minds of the Romans at this time 
were only too receptive of these faults. What can 
be more startling than the arrogance of philosophy 
towards heaven ? It was the boast of the sage 
"to fear neither man nor God":* "from man," 
says Seneca in another place, " not much is to be 
feared, from God nothing":! " the wase man sur- 
veys mankind from above, the gods from an equal 
level ":t nay, in some respects the sage even 
excels the Deity, for "his wisdom is his own 
making, while God is wise by nature."^ Nor was 
it all humanity, as we see, that was thus exalted to 
an equality with the gods. In spite of the level- 
ling doctrines which philosophers sometimes enun- 
ciated, their system was really rigidly exclusive. 
The masses, who were ignorant of philosophy, 
were classed as slaves and madmen, nor did their 
abject condition move the pity of the sage, but 
rather ministered to his spiritual pride. Pride, in 

* Ep. 75. t Sen. Ben. 7. 1. 

X Ep. 41. § Ep. 53. 



RADICAL DEFECTS OF STOICISM. 27 

fact, was the foundation of much of the stoical 
system, and formed one of its chief attractions. 
Almost more serious was the destruction of the 
sympathies and affections, never too warm at 
Rome, which formed a definite part of stoic 
teaching. " To feel pain at the misfortunes of 
others," says Seneca, " is a weakness unworthy of 
the wise man. . . . Only weak eyes become 
inflamed at the sight of ophthalmia in other men."* 
Feeling was in fact altogether despised, while 
intellect was enthroned in the seat of divinity. 
Knowledge of good and evil was the aim and ob- 
ject of life. " Una re consummatur animus, scien- 
tia bonorum et malorum." " In Deo nihil extra 
animum ; totus ratio est."t The result was a 
hardness and narrowness of character which pre- 
vented it from ever reaching perfection. The 
practical moralist might also complain that the 
porch offered no sufficient motive for a virtuous 
life. In the sublimity of its ideal it forgot the 
facts of human nature. It reproved vices, but 
could not correct them. It seemed to be m^ade up 
of inconsistencies throughout. It exhorted men 
to live according to nature, while it repressed the 
* Sen. Clem. 2. 6. f Sen. Nat. Queest 



28 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

affections and renounced the pleasures which 
nature bids us follow. It professed a pious humi- 
lity, while it exalted its votaries to a level with 
the Deity. It declared that aU men were brothers, 
and at the same time classed all but its own sect as 
slaves, fools, and madmen. It preached resigna- 
tion to the will of heaven, and at the same time 
counselled men to terminate their existence when- 
ever life ceased to satisfy them.* It was in fact 
a narrow, one-sided, and withal a hopeless creed, 
which might give a rule of life to the noble-minded, 
but could do little to regenerate society. 

We have quoted Seneca so often in this chapter 
that WQ must say a few words about his position 
as a Stoic. It has been said with truth that 
Stoicism was no part of Seneca's nature. He ac- 
cepted it with his intellect, but his heart led him 
constantly to contradict its principles. Hence the 
inconsistencies with which he has been twitted. 
His tastes, character, and affections often revolted 
against the doctrines of his school. When he says, 

* Stoicism is largely responsible for the epidemics of suicide 
wMcli characterised this period, cf . Sen. Ep. 71. " Ssepe et fortiter 
pereundum est, neque maximis de catisls, nam nee maximse sunt 
quae nos terrent." Suicide was, in fact, almost the logical conse- 
quence of the stoical view of the state of the world. 



STOICISM AND THE EMPIRE, 29 

" No good thing can be enjoyed without a friend 
to share it," it is the man, not the philosopher, who 
speaks. But we need not delay to reconcile the 
inconsistencies in Seneca's character. Perhaps Garat 
was right in saying that we should understand it 
if we lived under a reign of terror, such as that of 
Nero or Robespierre. 

It is more our business to consider the causes of 
the undoubted unpopularity of Stoicism with the 
government and with society in general. As regards 
the former, it would be difficult to find any justi- 
fication for the charges of disloyalty against which 
Seneca defends philosophy. It does not appear 
that as a class the Stoics ever encouraged rebellion 
or disaffection. And yet we find that until after 
Domitian, philosophers were constantly regarded 
with disfavour, and occasionally persecuted and 
driven from Rome. Probably the government had 
an instinctive feeling that the spirit of Stoicism was 
hostile to despotism. A moral ideal, capable of 
leading men to self-sacrifice and contempt of com- 
fort, was naturally distrusted by a monarchy which 
rested on materialism. Imperialism might secure 
wealth and ease to its subjects, but it gave no scope 
for lofty aspirations. Accordingly it instinctively 



30 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

arra3xd itself against both Stoicism and Christianity. 
As regards popular opinion, the reasons for the 
feeling against philosophy lie more on the surface. 
People do not like the presence of an arrogant and 
severe class of censors, especially when in spite of 
some exaggerations their strictures are mainly just. 
The man of pleasure always hates ideas, and the 
man of the world generally despises arts which do 
not tend to tangible advantage. Hence the pecu- 
liar acrimony with which rhetoricians attacked 
philosophy. Again, in the latter half of the cen- 
tury, shams and humbugs became very frequent. 
Just as many a sturdy beggar in the Middle Ages 
donned the cowl of the begging friar, many an idle 
vagabond and profligate called himself a Stoic, and 
brought discredit upon the name.* And even in 
higher circles there often seemed the greatest in- 
consistency between the professions and the prac- 
tice of the philosopher. It often seemed that 
while the Stoic disdained to help his fellow men, 
he had a keen eye for his own profit. We may 
be sure that the career of Seneca evoked from his 
contemporaries the same sarcasms with which 

* See Tac. Ann. 16. 32, for Egnatius, a hypocrite of tliis class, 
and Grant, Ethics 1. 281 ; Lightfoot, Ep. to Philippians, p. 284. 



UNPOPULARITY OF STOICISM. 31 

Macaulay has treated it. " The business of a philo- 
sopher was to declaim in praise of poverty with 
two milhons sterling out at usury : to meditate 
epigrammatic conceits about the evils of luxury in 
gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns ; to 
rant about liberty, while fawning on the insolent 
and pampered freedmen of a tyrant ; to celebrate 
the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen 
which had just before written a defence of the 
murder of a mother by a son." Lastly, the sordid 
habits and ostentatious disregard of the amenities 
of life which many philosophers affected, must 
have caused disgust and aversion in ordinary 
society. In the second century their position 
seems to have improved, both as regards the 
government and public opinion. 

But though generally unpopular, the philosopher 
was by no means an outcast from society. He 
was generally to be found in a large mansion, 
acting almost like a private chaplain, instructing 
in ethics those who wished to learn, and attending 
the death-beds of members of the family. We 
are particularly told that Petronius died without a 
word of philosophy being spoken by his bedside ; 
and in his romance Trimalchio directs that no philo- 



SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



sopher is to be allowed to approach him during his 
last illness. These exceptions shew that the ser- 
vices of philosophy were usually enlisted in times 
of trouble. In most cases^ no doubt, it was only 
in such times that the man of the world troubled 
himself much about the ideals of the sage. Momm- 
sen's statement that the chief result of philosophy 
was that " two or three families lived on frugal 
fare to please the Stoa/' seems, however, to be too 
strong. When we remember the numerous lec- 
tures, public and private, which celebrated philo- 
sophers gave to crowded audiences, the often im- 
portant position held by confidential philosophers 
at court, and the devoted affection which students 
felt towards their teachers, as Persius for Cornutus, 
we must admit a wider influence than these words 
impty, at least in the latter half of our period. 
Stoicism, in fact, held up the torch of morality in 
a very dark age, and imperfect as it was both in 
theory and practice, it testified always to the truth 
of a moral ideal, and never ceased to point to virtue 
as the one object of life. Such a creed, though 
disregarded by the many, can never exist in vain. 
Society feels its influence even while it scorns its 
professors. 



( 33 ) 



CHAPTER III. 

— ♦ — 

MOEALITY. 

The subject of Morality, when treated, as we shall 
treat it, exclusively from the point of view of the 
social historian, divides itself naturally into three 
sections, Integrity, Humanity, and Purity. These 
simple headings seem to cover nearly all the topics 
which belong to the subject. We propose to take 
them in order, endeavouring in each case to come 
to some conclusion as to the state of public opinion 
and practice at the period with which we are con- 
cerned. The first two sections will be treated with 
as much detail as shall seem necessary to arrive at 
the required result ; the last with that brevity and 
reticence which the nature of the subject demands. 
The Romans of the Republic prided themselves 
greatly on their honesty and truthfulness. They 
were fond of contrasting their own ' fides ' with 
the mendacity of the Greeks and the perfidy of 
the Phoenicians. Their annals were adorned with 

C 



34 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

signal examples of uprightness and fidelity, which, 
though to a great extent fictitious, yet shew what 
kind of qualities was most held in honour at the 
time. The incorruptible Fabricius, the high- 
minded Regulus, the frugal Cincinnatus, are ex- 
amples of what Rome considered the highest 
virtues in a citizen. The high estimation in which 
integrity was held may be accounted for by the 
early development of commerce in regal Rome ;* 
and the defects in the conception of it which we 
notice by the still narrow sphere in which contract 
worked. The claims of pietas were satisfied by 
the observance of stipulated forms ; and we hear 
of gross frauds being perpetrated without blame 
when the letter of the obligation was not violated. 
This defective conception of the duty of honesty 
would not be worth mentioning here if it had been 
a mere rudimentary stage in the development of 
contract ; but it continued to shew itself in the 
dealings of Rome with foreign nations throughout 
her history, and to a less extent in those between 
private citizens. Integrity was respected, but, like 
other virtues, less for its own sake than as a law to 
be observed. 

* See Groldwin Smith's Essay on this subject. 



INTEGRITY. 35 



Before the end of the RepubHc even this narrow 
morahty had nearly ceased to be observed. Pas- 
sionate love of money had overcome all respect for 
right and justice. We are startled by the univer- 
sal corruption, the perjuries, forgeries, and other 
crimes committed for the sake of profit. Nor is 
much improvement visible after the beginning of 
our period. Perhaps there were fewer opportuni- 
ties for crimes on a large scale than under the 
repubhc; but Juvenal, Tacitus, Seneca, and other 
writers, give a very gloomy picture of the unscru- 
pulousness of society in money matters. As usual, 
the higher classes were probably the worst, but we 
hear complaints of the frequent dishonesty of trades- 
men, and occasionally of great corruption in the 
middle class. The difficulty of making money by 
honest means, and the extravagant mode of life 
practised at Rome, gave a great stimulus both to 
legacy-hunting and forgery throughout society. 
The former of these was carried to such an extent 
that it is necessary to say a little about it. " Cap- 
tatio," or the pursuit of inheritances, became a 
regular art at Rome, with established rules and 
methods. Persons existed who made it the one 
business of their lives to court some wealthy 

C 2 



3G SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

bachelor ; to humour his fancies, praise his poetry, 
run his errands, make him presents, pray for his 
health and safety, and wait anxiously for his 
death. It was almost the only profession in which 
competition was keen and constant, and it appears 
to have been brought to great perfection. No 
means were thought degrading that could gain the 
wished-for end. The height of ingenuity was, 
perhaps, reached when the captator made a will of 
his own in favour of the rich old " orbus," and 
casually allowed him to see it. " Captatoria 
legata " had to be forbidden by law. The exist- 
ence of this contemptible class of men testifies to 
some of the worst evils of Roman society. The 
idleness of the citizens, their extravagance and 
luxury, their insatiable greed of money, above all, 
their habit of vicious celibacy, all contributed to 
make the odious figure of the captator so pro- 
minent in society. Pliny* laments the dege- 
neracy of his age in becoming terms. " Since 
senators and judges (he says) came to be chosen 
by their income, and magistrates and generals 
came to regard money as their chief title to dis- 
tinction ; since childlessness came to exercise the 

* Plin. H. N. 14. 6. 



CAPTATION a? 



greatest authority and power, and legacy-hunting 
to be the most lucrative profession, all the noble 
pursuits of life and liberal arts have fallen to the 
ground, and servitude alone is profitable. In 
various ways all men care for money, and for 
money alone : even distinguished men prefer to 
cultivate the faults of others rather than their own 
virtues." " The whole town," says Petronius, "is 
divided into those who throw the bait and those 
who take it. No one acknowledges children ; for 
the man who has heirs is never invited to any 
festive gathering, but is left to associate with the 
dregs of society. On the other hand, the childless 
man is covered with honours, and passes for a 
model of all the virtues. Rome is like a field out- 
side a plague-stricken city, in which you can see 
nothing but carcases and crows which feed upon 
them." So great were the advantages of childless- 
ness that Seneca consoles a mother who had just 
lost her only son by reminding her of the greater 
consideration she will now enjoy.* A man who 
married was regarded as hardly in his senses. — 
" Certe sanus eras ? Uxorem, Postume, ducis ?" 
The captator, however, was sometimes tired of 

♦ See also Tac. A. 3. 25, praeyalida orbitate. 



SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



waiting, and after his fond prayers for his patron's 
recover}^ had been unfortunately granted, he would 
sometimes call in a venefica to hasten his posses- 
sion of the inheritance, or in another case to remove 
the remaining heir. Or if, as very often happened, 
the ^Tilture was baulked of his prey, and the in- 
heritance left to a rival or a more worthy recipient, 
the rejected flatterer might still make himself rich 
and happy by means of a small tablet and mois- 
tened signet.* It is impossible to explain away 
the frequent notices of these crimes, and the 
evidence they afford of an unscrupulous and cor- 
rupt spirit in society. The only question is how 
far it extended. We would fain believe that in 
many circles honour and integrity were the rule, 
and this belief is supported by some works of the 
period, e.g.^ the letters of Pliny, which reveal a 
high-minded and refined tone at least in their 
author. Again, we do not hear much of dishonest 
contract-work, or fraudulent adulterations, the 
banes of modern commerce ; and credit seems to 
have been fairly good. The social and political 
differences which separated classes of course led to 
recognised imfaimess on the part of the superior ; 

* JuY. 1. 67. 



HUMANITY. 39 



and the provinces were still impoverished by un- 
equal trade with Roman merchants. This, how- 
ever, was in process of improvement owing to the 
extension of the citizenship, and the worst injus- 
tices belong to the end of the republican period. 
On the whole it appears that public opinion was 
decidedly laxer on this point than with us, and that 
a considerable section, especially in the upper 
classes, threw self-respect and scruples to the 
winds, and pursued wealth with a cynical disregard 
of right and wrong, such as is not often exhibited 
openly in modern times. 

The subject of humanity opens questions of 
deeper interest, and demands a fuller investigation. 
It forms indeed one of the most important branches 
of our subject. We shall find that the first century 
made substantial contributions to the progress of 
humanity, and that the evidences we can collect 
of opinion and practice on this head are full of in- 
terest and significance as bearing on the character 
of social life at Rome. Cruelty may arise from 
three causes. It may be a morbid passion which 
feeds on the sight of suffering. Men who are free 
from this disease may act cruelly either from 
callousness or from vindictiveness, of which the 



40 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

former may be called the masculine, the latter the 
feminine type of cruelty. The cruelty of the 
Romans belonged to the first class. Vindictiveness 
was not one of their national faults. When they 
were cruel, they were so from defective sensibility, 
which failed to make them realise the feelings and 
rights of their victims. This arose partly from a 
natural bluntness of character, partly from their 
narrow conception of the sphere of duty. Neither 
religion nor sympathy aroused in them a sense of 
the claims of aliens and dependents. Conscience 
in this as in other matters seemed the slave of 
positive law. The life of a prisoner, the land of a 
conquered city, were forfeited according to imme- 
morial law, and the right was exercised without 
scruple. A slave was a chattel, and his life was 
therefore of no value after he had ceased to be of 
use to his master. A debtor was made over by 
law to the power of his creditor, and mercy was 
seldom shewn to him. The whole history of 
Rome under the Republic is full of instances 
of what may be truly called unfeeling cruelty, 
of barbarities committed in cold blood and with- 
out remorse, as if the Twelve Tables were the 
highest code of justice and injustice, and the 



NATURE OF ROMAN CRUELTY. 41 

advantage of the Republic the ultimate test of right 
and wrong. 

It is one of the most interesting features of the 
period we are now considering that it shews many 
evidences of awakening sensibility in this matter. 
It is not so much a real advance in morality, as an 
increase in the sentiment of humanity. We find 
public opinion going ahead of legislation, demanding 
the most lenient interpretation of the law, and 
sometimes insisting on legal right being waived in 
the interests of mercy. This tendency is espe- 
cially noticeable in the case of slavery. In some 
other matters, such as the gladiatorial games, the 
awakening of the moral sense was longer deferred. 
For we trace only the first beginning of a change 
in public opinion, which required the sanction of a 
new religion to complete its development. 

Let us pass in review the chief objects on which 
humanity may be practised, and see how the 
Romans of the first century dealt with them. To 
take first the case of slavery. There are several 
indications that in spite of the enormous increase 
in the number of slaves, their condition was better 
under the empire than under the Republic. We 
seldom hear of the seditions and revolts which 



42 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

endangered the state in the first and second cen- 
turies before Christ. The hterature of the period 
gives several examples both of sincere and delicate 
friendship of the master towards the slaves, and of 
devotion and attachment of the slave to his 
master. Seneca insists strongly on the inherent 
equality of the master and his slaves, and entreats 
masters to consider " not how much the slave can 
be made to suffer with impunity, but how much 
the nature of right and justice permits. How 
much juster is it," he exclaims, " to treat men of 
noble mind and high character not as slaves, but 
as inferiors in social rank, to whom you stand in 
the position of protector not of owner. There are 
some things which the law permits, but which 
justice forbids to be done." Here we have an 
explicit recognition of extra-legal duty. Much of 
the credit of this improvement in feeling belongs 
to Stoicism, which preached the brotherhood of 
mankind with great persistency. It even suc- 
ceeded in gaining for the slave-class several im- 
portant legislative enactments, some of which fall 
within our period, others in the second century. 
Augustus, though he was himself guilty of the 
murder of a slave for killing a favourite quail, 



ADVANCE IN PUBLIC OPINION. 43 

shewed his disapproval of atrocious cruelty by 
masters at least on one occasion. The anecdote, 
which supplies about the worst instance on 
record of Roman cruelty to slaves, is well-known. 
Vedius Pollio was about to throw a slave into his 
fish-pond to feed his lampreys, because he had 
broken a crystal cup. Augustus, as a punishment, 
ordered all the vessels in the house to be broken, 
and the pond to be filled up. The Lex Petronia, 
which forbade slaves to be exposed to fight with 
wild beasts without the sanction of a judex, is 
commonly placed in this reign. But the cause 
of mercy gained greater successes under the later 
Caesars. Claudius forbade the exposition of sickly 
or infirm slaves on an island of the Tiber, and 
decreed, according to Suetonius, that those who 
killed their slaves instead of exposing them should 
be held guilty of murder (caedes), an ambiguous 
expression, for we cannot suppose that the offence 
was regarded in the same light as the murder of a 
free man. In fact, the power of life and death 
was not even limited till the reign of Antoninus. 
Nero appointed a judge to protect slaves from 
cruelty and outrage, a great step, if the law 
was honestly carried out. Domitian forbade the 



44 SOCIAL LIFE IN HOME. 

mutilation of slaves. The torture of slaves to 
extract evidence was about this time restricted, 
and seems to have become uncommon. The 
social position of the slave seems not quite so 
degraded as in the previous age. He appears 
more frequently in the educated professions, and 
is apparently allowed more liberty of action in 
the disposal of his time. It is common to allow 
him to purchase his freedom out of his savings, 
and if he is manumitted as a favour, he is gene- 
rally allowed to retain his peculium. Manumission 
comes to be regarded as a regular reward of 
faithful service, and complaints are made of the 
dangerous extent to which it is practised. Alto- 
gether, Roman slavery at this time contrasts 
favourably in many ways with the negro slavery 
of some Christian nations. We do not forget the 
darker side of the picture. The atrocious execu- 
tion of the 400 slaves of the murdered Pedanius 
in the reign of Nero,* the vengeance provoked by 
the harshness of Larcius Macedo at the end of 
the century, t the frequent murders of masters by 
their slaves, t the frightful picture drawn by 

* Tac. Ann. 14. 42-45. f Plin. Bp. 3. 14. 

J Sen. Bp. 4. 8. " Non pauciores servorum ira cecidisse, quam 
regum." 



IMPROVED TREATMENT OF SLAVES. 45 

Juvenal in his Sixth Satire, shew that a fearful 
power still remained in the master's hands, and 
that not a few abused it to a terrible extent. 
These horrors were, however, we believe, the 
exception, not the rule, and have survived simply 
as being exceptions. Seneca tells us that masters 
who ill-treated their slaves were pointed at in the 
streets,* and the tone of public opinion seems, as 
we said, to have been growing more humane 
throughout the first century. The pride of race 
was diminishing, and the minds of the privileged 
class were becoming more open to the claims of 
aliens and dependents. The slaves had still much 
to suffer, and their condition was in some respects 
a very miserable one, but the voice of humanity 
had made itself heard, and the reform, which 
dates from the first century, extended steadily till 
the evil plant was uprooted from the soil of 
Europe. 

Humanity to criminals is generally a late pro- 
duct of civilisation. The Romans, however, were 
distinguished by the leniency of their punishments 
where citizens were the guilty parties. At a time 
when slaves might be put to a terrible death for 

* Sen. de Clem. 1. 18. 



46 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

the slightest offences, the gravest crime in a Roman 
was seldom punished except by banishment. The 
barbarous penalties of the Twelve Tables had long 
fallen into desuetude, and if we except the cruelties 
of some of the emperors, — the natural product of 
despotic power, — the Romans cannot be accused 
of over-severity to delinquents within their o^^^l 
pale A few instances might be quoted to the 
contrary. For example, the horrid stor}^ of the 
execution of the children of Sejanus displays 
strongly the old Roman callousness mingled vnxh 
the old over -respect for legal formality. The 
bur\'ing ahve of a Vestal byDomitian was a violent 
shock to the feelings of the age, though welcomed 
by the superstitious. 

This is perhaps the best place to notice what 
must have been a ver}^ unpleasant feature in Roman 
life — namely, the brutality of bullies in the streets. 
If we may believe Juvenal and Apuleius,* the high 
roads and the streets of Rome were rendered un- 
safe for the defenceless traveller ; not so much by 
the assaults of professional footpads, as by fashion- 
able rou^s returning from their nocturnal revels. 

* See also Plin. 13. 43 : Dion. 61. 9 ; Suet. Nero 26 ; Tac. Ann. 
13. 25. 47 ; \vitli Juv. 3. 275, A:c. ; Apul. Met. 2. 18. 



STREET-BULLIES. 47 

These young blades used to patrol the streets ac- 
companied by a gang of followers, for the purpose 
of insulting and beating any wayfarer who might 
be unfortunate enough to meet them. Their ordi- 
nary mode of procedure, according to Juvenal, was 
to accost the stranger in insulting language, and 
then fall upon with cudgels, or even swords, 
so that he might think himself happy if he escaped 
with a few teeth still in his head. Sometimes 
the aggressors were not content even with this, 
but accused their victim next day of having as- 
saulted them. These roisterers, who went to bed 
in dejection if they had beaten no one that night, 
were often men of good position, who adopted 
this extraordinary means of amusing themselves. 
The phenomenon has not been unknown in 
European capitals in modem times.* Nero was 
the model of these " grassatores," and Otho one of 
his chief companions. Apuleius gives a very similar 
account of the state of the high-roads in the pro- 
vinces. A countryman is riding on his donkey 
along a high road in Macedonia. A legionary 
soldier meets him, assaults him without any 

* The " Mohocks " of the last century in London will suggest 
themselves as a parallel. See also Demosthenes in Cononem. 



48 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

pretext, and only leaves off beating him when 
he feisms to be dead. The next dav he brins^s 
a charge against the unhappy man for stealing, 
and succeeds in having him led off to execution. 
This is doubtless an exaggerated story, but we 
have strong testimony to the existence of such 
brutahty to strangers and inferiors, and from 
the number of references to it, it appears to have 
been ver\' common. From the point of view of 
our present chapter it illustrates the evil of harsh 
social distinctions, which obliterate the feelings of 
social duties. It brings home to us with great 
force the unpleasant position of the weak and un- 
protected in Roman society, when we hear of 
aggravated assaults, sometimes causing death, being 
committed with impunity. The rich could defend 
themselves by the help of their chents and slaves ; 
the poor, unless they could attach themselves to 
some powerful protector, were in constant danger 
of insult and outrage. To use a common modem 
phrase, there was practically one law for the strong, 
another for the weak. 

The rehef of the poor, the suffering, and the un- 
fortunate, is another important branch of humanity. 
On this point we are struck by the very large pro- 



THE ST A TE DOLE. 49 

portion of the population of Rome whose fortune 
or misfortune it was " ahena vivere quadra." Be- 
sides the unknown multitudes of slaves, and the 
very considerable number of clients, hangers-on, 
and parasites, not less than 200,000 persons were 
dependent on the State for their daily food. Only 
a very small minority of the inhabitants can have 
paid for their own board. This fact marks a great 
difference between Rome and m.odem cities, and 
explains why " charity " there played so much 
less a part than in modern times. We cannqf 
dignify with that honourable name the gratuitous 
distribution of corn, which carried with it all the 
evils of almsgiving without the advantages : like 
the rest of Imperial munificence, baths, libraries, 
games, &c., it was a mere political device, which 
reduced indeed the want of private benevolence, 
but was itself of a different nature. The same may 
be said of land-distributions, which were made 
occasionally in our period ; nor were the legacies 
which some princes left to the people evidences 
of genuine benevolence.* A movement for the 

* We may seem here to do scant justice to the noble municipal 
patriotism which, left such splendid monuments of itself over the 
whole empire. But this is not humanity, but a diiferent virtue, 
which may more fitly receive its recognition in another chapter. 

D 



50 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

education of poor children desen^es more praise. 
It was begun by Vespasian, extended by Nerva, 
and carried on by his successors. Besides the 
action of the State, it became common for wealthy 
men to found charities in their native to\\Tis for 
the free education of the poor. Pliny conferred 
this benefit on the town of Comum. Hospitals 
were however unknown, so far as we can tell, and 
there is no trace of lunatic asylums. The insane 
were not illtreated, as in England till the present 
century, but were attended by ordinary physicians. 
Private misfortunes were relieved by the generosity 
of friends. The liberality which w^as often dis- 
played in these cases is remarkable, and forms a 
pleasing feature in Roman life. If a man's house 
w^as burnt do\\Ti, he was loaded with gifts of all 
kinds from his neighbours, so that he might even 
be a gainer by the misfortune.* The presents 
might not be altogether disinterested, and the poor 
man might find no one to help him in a similar 
disaster, but on the whole a good deal of generosity 
seems to have been practised at Rome.f When the 

* Juv. 3. 222. 

f Polybius indeed says, that " at Eome no one ever gives any- 
tliing to anybody; " but this is hardly borne out by other evidence, 
at least in our period. 



PAGAN CHARITY. 51 

amphitheatre at Fidena fell, and killed and wounded 
an enormous number of persons, the houses of the 
rich were thrown open to admit the sufferers, and 
surgeons and remedies supplied them free of cost.* 
Such instances seem to shew that " charity," though 
not exalted to so high a place as in Christian 
times, was by no means defective under the early 
Emperors, 

The enemies of the Roman people were still 
treated with rigour, when occasion offered. The 
siege and capture of Jerusalem by Titus was per- 
haps the most murderous of Roman victories. On 
the other hand, Claudius treated the captured 
Caractacus with a magnanimity which had not 
been shewn in former days to Vercingetorix or 
Jugurtha. But the foreign wars of Rome in this 
period were comparatively few and insignificant, and 
we have not sufficient means of judging whether 
the duty of clemency to the conquered was more 
recognized than in the republican age. 

Let us pass on for a few moments to another 
branch of humanity (if the word may be extended 
so far), namely, kindness to animals. The indif- 
ference of the southern nations of Europe to the 

* Tac. Ann. 4. 63. 
D 2 



52 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME, 

sufferings of animals at the present day is well 
kno\sai. We may assert with confidence that 
Pagan Rome was considerably in advance of modern 
Italy in this respect. It would be unsafe to insist 
too much on the affection of the Roman for his 
pets, of which we have several curious examples ;* 
but we find cases of legislation, such as the ancient 
law forbidding on pain of death the slaughter of 
the ox,t and cases such as the capital punishment 
of a child for cruelty to birds^ which shew how 
strong was the feeling on the subject. Mr. Lecky§ 
quotes or refers to some interesting passages 
firom Ovid, Plutarch, Lucretius, and Juvenal, 
illustrative ot the same feeling. We even find 
persons refusing to hunt or to eat meat for conscien- 
tious reasons. This pleasing feature in Roman life, 
which contrasts so favourably with the practice of 
many Christian nations, may be partly attributed 
to the teaching of some philosophers, e.g. the 
Pythagorean schools, which held the doctrine of 

* For Eoman pets, cf . Mart. 7. 87, where lie mentions monkeys, 
ichneumons, magpies, and snakes, besides the more ordinary 
animals. 

f This curious law was common to most of the nations of 
antiquity. We find it at Athens, in Phrygia, and in other places. 

% Quint. Instit. 5. 9. 

§ History of European Morals, vol. II. p. 165, 



KINDNESS TO ANIMALS. 53 

the transmigration of souls. Stories arising from 
ignorance of natural history may also, as Mr. 
Lecky suggests, have aided to cause the convic- 
tion that the natures of men and animals are 
identical. We can only be surprised that no 
opposition was made to the cruelties of the 
amphitheatre. 

We have deferred till now the subject which is 
generally the first to come into our minds when 
we think of Roman precept or practice in the 
matter of humanity. The very important part 
which the " games " of the amphitheatre played 
in the social life of Rome has been recognized by 
most writers on the subject. There is, probably, 
no feature in ancient life that appears to the modem 
mind more startling than that throughout the 
period of its highest civilisation and culture one of 
the main amusements of the Roman people should 
have been the spectacle of human bloodshed. We 
find it dif&cult to believe that men who could 
take pleasure in such a spectacle could have any 
feelings of humanity at all. We seem to be 
contemplating the lowest abyss to which human 
depravity can sink, the most hideous perver- 
sion of all the kindly sentiments of our nature. 



54 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

To contemplate suffering which brings no ad- 
vantage to the beholder, and to gloat over it 
for its own sake, may seem not an attribute 
of men, but of fiends. The possibility of such 
a moral disease has been indignantly denied by 
many writers on ethics, from Hobbes dowTi- 
wards. Selfishness, they say, may dry up the milk 
of human kindness, or revenge turn it to gall, but 
the mere sight of suffering, in the absence of such 
motives, can never be otherwise than painful. 
We believe this view to be altogether mistaken. 
In the happy security of our peaceful civilisation 
there may exist latent elements in our nature 
which never reveal themselves to our self-con- 
sciousness. The truth seems to be, as Professor 
Bain says, that this feeling is a mode of sen- 
suous and sensual gratification, which, in the ab- 
sence of counterv^ailing sympathies, may amount 
to a very keen sensation of pleasure, and by 
habitual indulgence may produce a morbid craving 
of the most potent kind. In boys this ten- 
dency often shews itself; in savages it is almost 
universal, and produces the most hideous results ; 
in civilised men it is generally undeveloped and 
scarcely felt to exist unless called out by ex- 



THE " GAMES'' OF THE AMPHITHEA TRE. 55 

ceptional circumstances. At Rome the gladia- 
torial shows afforded it the most abundant food. 
Even the holocausts of victims slaughtered on the 
sacrificial stone of the Aztec war-god must have 
been less demoralising to the spectators than the 
Roman games. The continual succession of these 
barbarous spectacles, the intense enthusiasm they 
excited, and the absence of other matters of in- 
terest which might divert the attention, kept the 
imagination constantly fixed on these scenes of 
torture and death.* 

The measure 'of the evil wrought by the games 
may be taken by the neglect of the higher intel- 
lectual amusements which we observe at this 
period. The drama seemed tasteless and insipid 
to those who habitually watched the enactment of 
the direct tragedies in real life. The eyes that 
had gloated over the last contortions of human 
agony, the ears that had feasted themselves on the 
shouts and groans of mortal conflict, could never 
again feel much interest in the sight of blind 
CEdipus, or the narration of Polyxena's sacrifice .f 
Even comedy had lost its charms, and could only 

* Even the children played at gladiators. Epictetus M. 29. 3. 
f See Tac. Dial. Or. 29, where he laments that gladiators and 
race-horses had left no room for noble culture. 



56 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME 



attract when it pandered to the pruriency which 
shared with thirst for blood the polluted minds of 
the populace. The gorgeous processions which 
had been so popular in the republican days were 
now regarded vdi\v impatience.* At last even 
the games themselves were not sufficient to satisfy 
the morbid cra\ing, unless they were varied by 
constant novelties in slaughter, often consisting of 
more wholesale bloodshed, or more horrid forms 
of death.f 

In spite of legislative restrictions, to be referred 
to in another chapter, the number* of victims in- 
creased, till in the reign of Trajan we read of 
10,000- gladiators being exposed to fight. The 
combat of armed men v>-as varied by ever}^ kind of 
fantastic device, appealing to the love of novelty 
in the spectators, which always craved for some 
new excitement. The combatants were armed as 
Thracians, as ^Nlirmillones, as Essedarii, or as 
Retiarii, and especial interest was excited by a 

* Seneca closes one of his imaginary harangues by saying, " Sed 
jam non snstineo tos morari. Scio quam odiosa sit circensibus 
pompa." Sen. Contror. 1 prsef. ad fin. 

f Among the most atrocious slaughters in the arena during this 
century may be mentioned that of the British prisoners at Rome 
under Claudius (Dion. 60. 30), and that of 2,5u0 Jews at Caesarea 
in A.D. 70. 



BARBARITY OF THE SPECTATORS. 57 

struggle between two different sorts of equipment. 
Even the sense of the ludicrous was appealed to 
by combats of blind-folded men,* of dwarfs and 
deformed persons, f while there are several in- 
stances on record of women descending into the 
arena. This last atrocity seems to have disgusted 
even the depraved taste of the populace, and it was 
eventually forbidden. The deserts of Africa and 
Asia were ransacked for every kind of wild beast 
that could be made to fight in the arena. The 
excitement of the spectators during the combats 
was intense, and shewed itself in savage shouts, 
such as " Habet ! " " Accipe ferrum ! " " Occide, ure, 
verbera ! " " Quare tam timide incurrit in ferrum ? " 
" Quare parum libenter moritur ? " | By a cruel 
innovation the life of the vanquished gladiator was 
made to depend on the suffrages of the crowd, and 
attempts were even made to introduce games 
" sine missione," where no quarter was to be given. 
These were, however, forbidden by Augustus. § 
The general practice was for the spectators to 
express their wishes as to the fate of the prostrate 
combatant by a motion of the thumb, which was 

^ Andabatoe Cic. ad Fam. 7. 10. f Stat. Silv. 1. 57-64. 

X Sen. Ep. 7. 4. § Suet. Aug. 45. 



58 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

turned to the breast to indicate the death thrust, or 
moved downwards to signify the dropping of the 
weapon.* 

We have no right to wonder that this pernicious 
institution was more popular than even the bull- 
fights of modern Spain, and that the attraction 
was so strong that even Christians in the ardour 
of their newly-accepted faith often failed to tear 
themselves away from the amphi theatre. f We 
must admit that no element of excitement and 
interest was wanting. The vast assemblage of 
human beings, all intent on a common object, 
was enough in itself to blunt the susceptibilities 
and rouse the ardour of each indi\adual spectator ; 
the magnificence and variety of the entertainment 
dazzled the eye and kept the attention con- 
stantly riveted ; the splendid courage wath which 
the combatants always faced wounds and death 
took away most of the hideousness which usually 
attends the violent extinction of human life ; and 
the spirit of partisanship, which is necessary to 
identify the spectator with the scenes he ^^^t- 

* These mute gestures were often accompanied by load shouts, 
« dissono clamore," Tac. A. 1. 32. Cf . also Suet. Cal. 30 ; Mart. 
Spect. 29. 3 ; Fronto ad M. Caes. 2. 4. 4. 

t Cf. Augustine, Confess. 6. 8. 



POPULARITY OF THE INSTITUTION. 59 

nesses, was excited both by the person of the 
gladiator and by the method of his equipment 
and fighting.* When we add to these attractions 
the unhappy psychological phenomenon which we 
discussed above^ we have an ample explanation of 
the strength of this institution, which nothing but 
Christianity could eradicate. 

We are, however, disappointed by the tone of 
the cultivated classes with regard to the games. 
We find very few traces of the disgust which we 
should have expected them to arouse in a refined 
mind. Such as there are belong to the Empire, 
not to the Republic, which bears out the theory 
we are endeavouring to maintain, that a great 
awakening of humanity dates from the first cen- 
tury. Cicero, indeed, says that '^some consider 
the games cruel, and possibly they are as now 
conducted,"! and in another place declares that 
he feels no pleasure in seeing a feeble man torn 
by a powerful beast, or a noble animal transfixed 
by a spear.J This we should expect in a man of 
Cicero's character, but his aversion is one of 

* The rivalry between the supporters of the large and small 
shield was very keen in the latter half of our century, 
t Tusc. 2. 17. 
X Ep. ad Div. 7. 1. 



60 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

taste and not of principle.* After the Augustan 
age a slightly better tone seems to prevail. 
Drusus the son of Tiberius^f and Claudius^! are 
blamed for she^^ing too keen a pleasure in the 
sight of bloodshed. Private ^^Tite^s no longer put 
fonvard the official justification — that the sight of 
strife and death promotes a militan^ spirit in the 
citizens. Literature supphes no instance of a dis- 
position to gloat over the hon'ors of the arena ; 
and Seneca condemns the games altogether, with 
great eloquence and \igour,§ on the true prin- 
ciples of humanity. But though other indications 
of awakening conscience might be quoted, the 
record during the first centur}- is on the whole 
disappointing, and shews that morality had as 
5'et made little progress on this field. We may 
now leave this painful but interesting subject, 
the importance of which seemed to justify a 
somewhat lengthy discussion. 

* See e.g., Tusc. 2. 20, where he defends the games as conducive 
to courage and contempt of death. 

t Tac. Ann. 1. 76. 

X Suet. Claud. 

§ Nothing could be more finely expressed than his answer to 
the common plea that the sufferers were criminals. '* They de- 
serve to die, I know ; but what crime have you committed to 
deserve to be a spectator of their punishment 1 " 



SEXUAL MORALITY. 61 

The third branch of morality which we have to 
discuss is that connected with the relations be- 
tween the sexes. The points to be considered are : 
first, the extent and causes of the degradation of 
public morals in this particular, and, secondly, the 
movement of public opinion on the subject during 
the first century. The Romans of the early re- 
public justly prided themselves on the purity of 
their domestic life, which enabled them to allow 
great freedom to their v/omen, and made divorce 
an unknown thing. Though the legal position of 
the wife, as of the son, was low, w^omen enjoyed 
great respect and influence, and the organism of 
domestic life was sound and healthy. This 
pleasing state of things was changed by the ex- 
tension of the empire. A wave of corruption 
swept over Rome with the influx of Oriental 
wealth and Oriental slaves, the slaves especiall)^ 
being a fruitful source of vice, as they always are 
where the institution exists. The civil war, which 
ended with the battle of Actium, completed the 
dissolution of morals, and opened a period perhaps 
unparallelled in history for unblushing debauchery 
and shameless wickedness. The plague fed on its 
own contamination. Literature spread corruption 



62 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

through all classes by the audacity of its coarse- 
ness. The theatre owed its chief attraction to the 
manner in which it pandered to the \alest tastes. 
Art lent itself to depict shameless and suggestive 
scenes. Even religion became the ready minister of 
\ice ; and the temples of Isis were constantly used 
for the ^-ilest purposes.* The women, as is usually 
the case when society is thoroughly corrupt, were 
even more depraved than the men. Abnormal 
forms of \'ice were as common in Rome as ever in 
Greece. The court often set the example of the . 
most hideous profligacy. It is unnecessary' to 
heighten the colours of the dreadful picture by 
references to Juvenal, Martial, or Suetonius. It is 
needful to keep in mind this melancholy feature of 
Roman life, but no excuse is wanted for not 
allowing it its due proportion of space in an essay 
of this kind. Without further details, then, let us 
state that the Empire foimd the whole of society 
pervaded with the grossest immorality, that mar- 
riage was avoided to an extent which threatened 
the extinction of the Roman stock, that divorce 
was practised with a scandalous le\ity and fre- 

* Cf. the story of Decius Mundus, in the reign of Tiberius, 
The strong expressions of Minucius Felix, quoted by Friedlander, 
shew that the evil still existed in the third century. 



DEPRAVITY OF THE AGE. 63 



quency, that even military discipline and the 
frugality of a country life had ceased to exercise 
their wholesome influence on society, that religion 
was either silent or enlisted in the service of vice, 
and that behef in purity seemed to have almost 
vanished from the earth. It will be a more plea- 
sing task to consider what deductions can be made 
from this gloomy indictment, and what hopes for 
the future were discernible in the darkness of 
Pagan wickedness. 

In the first place the whole empire was not 
nearly so corrupt as the capital. The valley of 
the Po still contained a free agricultural and 
industrial population, whose business or sim- 
plicity preserved their virtue from contamination. 
The great towns of the East, such as Antioch 
and Alexandria, were the imitators or instructors 
of Rome in the worst excesses; but we would 
gladly believe that the western provinces, and the 
rural districts of the empire generally, were stran- 
gers to the worst fruits of luxury. Again, we are 
pleased to find that as the barbarities of the slave- 
owner did not quench the spirit of loyalty and 
fidelity in the slaves, so the laxity of morals in 
both sexes did not banish from society the do- 



64 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

mestic virtues of conjugal devotion. It was 
remarked by Velleius Paterculus* that the q\\\ 
period of the civil wars was brightened by signal 
examples of devotion of slaves to their masters, 
and still more of wives to their husbands, while the 
bonds of filial duty seemed to have been altogether 
broken. And the early empire can furnish as 
signal examples of fidehty as the end of the re- 
public. The courage of Porcia, the wife of Brutus, 
is not more admirable than the devotion of the 
two Arrias, mother and daughter, to their hus- 
bands. t The epitaphs of the period shew that 
the old ideal of womanhood was not yet extinct. 
Many Roman matrons, if we may trust the inscrip- 
tions on their sepulchres, still followed the simple 
rule of old times, " domi mansit, lanam fecit," and 
many were able to take the still prized title of 
" Univira." There is another consideration which 
has not been urged b}^ other writers on the subject, 
but which may well make us pause before accept- 
ing too readily the pictures drawn by satirists hke 
Juvenal, profligates like Martial, pessimists like 

* Veil. 2. 67. 

•j- Fannia, tJie daughter of the younger Arrias, and wife of 
Helvidius Priscus, shewed herself worthy of her mother and 
grandmother. Plin. Ep. 7. 19. 



EVIDENCE FROM LITERATURE. 65 

Tacitus, and scandal-mongers like Suetonius. We 
mean the purity and delicacy of some of the pro- 
minent writers of the age. To go back a little, 
as we may, Cicero, though often foul-mouthed in 
invective, was evidently a moral man; Virgil is 
conspicuous among the writers of all ages for his 
purity ; Pliny the Younger shews all the reticence 
and delicacy of the modern gentleman; Seneca, 
Epictetus, and Plutarch urge strongly the obliga- 
tion of chastity in the husband as well as the 
wife ; and many other instances might be quoted 
to shew that the corruption was not by any 
means universal. These are the chief arguments 
we can find to oppose to the fearful array 
of evidence against the morality of Imperial 
Rome. It must be confessed that they make 
but a poor show. We may hope that civiliza- 
tion will never again sink into so deep a degra- 
dation. 

It remains to consider whether in this as in 
other branches of morality, the first century 
kindled the life-giving spark which was to bum 
so brightly afterwards. We have just mentioned 
the noble teaching of Seneca and Plutarch on 
the duty of chastity. Still more Christian in 

E 



6Q SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

tone are the precepts of Musonius Rufus, who 
condemned all illicit intercourse either in or out 
of wedlock, and taught that " the virtues of 
men and women are the same." This, which 
had never been inculcated by the older Stoics, 
seems a forecast of the ascetic notion of purity 
which was developed by Christianity. We find 
many instances of it in the next century out- 
side the pale of Christianity, but scarcely any 
other indications of it in our period.* We do, 
however, trace some desire for moral reform in 
this as in other respects towards the close of the 
century. It never reached boiling point, but " sim- 
mered gently on the surface of society," f and did 
something to check the extravagance and osten- 
tation of vice which is so painful a feature of 
the age. 

We purpose to conclude this chapter by a few 
remarks on what we have learnt to call the 
sanctity of human life, as understood at Rome. 

* Epictetus, however, regards celibacy as a higher state than 
marriage. This view, which was held by nearly all early Christian 
writers, is quite contrary to the ordinary ideas of antiquity, and 
can only be due to the ascetic notion of the relations between the 
sexes. 

-j- Merivale. 



HOMICIDE, 67 



The attitude of society towards murder, infanti- 
cide, and homicide generally, and the kindred 
question of suicide, presents some points of 
interest which should not be passed over. To 
take first the question of murder of adult free 
persons. There is much evidence to prove that 
domestic crime was extremely common in this 
century. Parricide, perhaps the most unnatural 
crime of all, is noticed as increasing in frequency. 
In earlier times there had been no legislation on 
the subject, the crime being regarded as too 
horrible to be committed. Poisoning of husbands 
and wives was apparently carried on to a frightful 
extent. We need only refer to the awful revela- 
tion of wickedness in Cicero's speech pro Cluentio, 
and to Martial's half- humorous denunciations, 
e^g', Ep. 9, 15 : 

" Inscripsit tumulis septem scelerata virorum 
' Se fecisse ' Chloe ; quid pote simplicius ? " 

the literal truth of which may be doubted, but this 
does not affect their value as evidence. Profes- 
sional poisoners, such as Locusta, found plenty of 
occupation at court and among the upper classes. 
The chief motives of these crimes were love of 
money and adulterous passion, especially the 
E 2 



68 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

former. We have before mentioned the baneful 
result of combined luxury and idleness on the 
morals of the aristocracy. A ruined man of fashion, 
or a member of a fallen family, had no means of 
repairing his fortunes except by legacy-hunting 
or marrying an heiress, and the temptation to 
crime in the frantic pursuit of wealth was often 
irresistible. Murders by the criminal classes, in 
housebreaking or highway robbery, are sometimes 
mentioned. Assassination, such as was common in 
Italy in the 15th century, was never a Roman 
crime. The duel, that strangest product of Chris- 
tian civilization, was absolutely unknown. It was 
characteristic of the Roman temperament to dis- 
courage personal violence in redressing private 
wrongs, and to employ legal remedies to settle 
even " affairs of honour." At Rome, as in England, 
slander was confuted and punished not at the 
sword's point, but by the verdict of a court of jus- 
tice. The ordinary course of a quarrel in high 
life at Rome was dignified and temperate. Ger- 
manicus sends Piso a cartel — not of challenge to 
mortal combat, but to inform him that their 
acquaintance and friendship must cease.* Tiberius 

* Tac. Ann. 2. 70, and 3. 12. 



INFANTICIDE. C9 



sends a similar message to Labeo.* Even a wager 
at law was employed in cases of this kind. The 
case of slaves has already been dealt with. 

To take next the cases of abortion and infanti- 
cide. The former it appears was not discouraged 
by law, and was very extensively practised. The 
art was a regular part of the physician's practice, 
and was apparently well understood.! We find 
praises of women for not resorting to it. The 
destruction of a new-born infant was according to 
some authorities forbidden by law, but it was cer- 
tainly common 4 Parents whose sense of pity 
prevented them from killing an infant, often 
exposed it, in which case it either died of neglect 
or was reared as a slave or prostitute by persons 
who made a trade of the practice. The habit of 
" limiting the number of children," as Tacitus 
euphemistically calls it, was condemned on political 
grounds as tending to diminish population at a 
time when the human harvest v/as bad ; but we do 

* Tac. Ann. 6. 29. The emperor, however, speaks of " reviying 
an old custom," so perhaps the formality was nearly obsolete in 
our period. 

t See, however, Ovid. "Sgepe suos utero qu£e necat ipsa 
perit." 

J See Sen. de Ira. 1. 15. 2. " Liberos quoque, si debiles mon- 
strosique editi sunt, mergimus.'^ 



70 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

not find the moral condemnation which modem 
society passes on the practice, a judgment which 
is due to a new conception of the guilt of homi- 
cide, introduced by Christianity. The practice of 
infanticide was certainly highly mischievous at 
Rome in this period, and contributed not a little 
to the gradual extinction of the Roman race. 

The kindred subject of suicide holds an extremely 
prominent place in Roman social history, especially 
in our period. At no other time probably has 
deliberate withdrawal from life been so common as 
under the early empire at Rome. Men committed 
suicide to escape the pains of mortal disease, or to 
anticipate condemnation for crime ; many resolved 
to end their life when they felt old age coming 
upon them ; some even determined to accompany a 
beloved person to the tomb. The resolution was 
carried out with a calm deliberation which distin- 
guishes Roman suicides from the rash and sudden 
acts of self-destruction with which we are familiar. 
We read of men calmly waiting the verdict of their 
physicians on their chances of recovery from sick- 
ness, before deciding whether to live or die; of 
others fixing a day to end their lives, and notifying 
it to their relations ; of others choosing a lingering 



SUICIDE. 71 



form of death, apparently with the object of dying 
in the presence of their friends. Some noble men 
put an end to their lives in despair of their country, 
under the vile tyranny of some of the emperors ; 
one man, on the other hand, postponed his death 
till after the assassination of Domitian, that he 
might die free. Public opinion was generally 
favourable to suicide. Many philosophers, it is 
true, condemned it as a desertion of one's post, but 
the general feeling was, that it was an open door 
through which man might escape at any time fromr 
the woes of life, and that he had a perfect right to 
avail themselves of it. The best indication of the 
Roman view of the subject is that given by Pliny,* 
when he says, " There are some things that even 
God cannot do ; for he cannot seek death if he 
wishes it — ^that best of gifts which he has given to 
men amid all the miseries of life." Seneca, in a 
burst of brilliant eloquence, enumerates the suffer- 
ings from which death makes us free, and con- 
gratulates the human race on the liberty which is 
thus within their reach, f Many distinguished 
Romans, Musonius Rufus, Silius Italicus, Petronius, 

* Plin. H. N. 2. 5. 

f Sen. Cons, ad Marciam, 20. 



72 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Otho the Emperor * among them, put into practice 
the precepts of philosophers. The death of Cato 
became a commonplace of panegyric. Regular 
epidemics of suicides appeared in various places. 
A law had to be made preventing accused persons 
saving their property for their families by antici- 
pating their sentence. The idea of hfe being sacred 
in itself was quite foreign to the Roman mind. 
Moralists condemned suicide, when they did so, as 
desertion or cowardice, but not as murder. The 
legislature did not interfere in the matter, and 
philosophers were left to discuss the subject calmly 
and impartially. As we have seen, they were 
divided on the question, but the hardness of the 
Roman temperament predisposed men to regard 
life very lightly, and the arguments from patriotism 
and personal dignity did not appeal to the many. 
Where a materialistic view of life prevails, suicide 
is naturally looked upon as reasonable in certain 
cases, and is likely to be common, especially among 
the educated, who are more influenced by general 
ideas. Christianity has certainly increased the 
seriousness with which death is regarded, and this 

* other suicides in the first century were Cocceius Nerva, under 
Tiberius, Sextius Severus, Albucius Silus, Corellius Rufus, and 

Titius Aristo. 



DANGER OF EXAGGERATION, 73 

fact makes it rather difficult for us to enter into the 
feehngs of the ancients on the subject. 

We have now concluded our brief survey of the 
state of pagan morality at Rome during the first 
century. It is in most respects a dark picture, 
though some writers have painted it in yet blacker 
colours. But the dictates alike of feeling and of 
reason forbid us to believe the worst accounts that 
have reached us. It is no disparagement of the 
work wrought by Christianity to hesitate before 
accepting evidence which would argue a radical 
change in human nature. We should rather rest 
assured that in the worst times virtue has never 
left the earth, and that in its broad features human 
nature is the same for good and evil as it was 2,000 
years ago. The testimony of an age against itself 
is always overdrawn. Let us correct the fierce in- 
vective of Juvenal by the wise warning of Seneca.* 
" We must guard against letting blame fall on our 
own age. This has always been the complaint of 
our ancestors, that manners have been corrupted, 
that vice reigns, that human life is deteriorating 
and falling into every kind of wickedness. We 
lament in the same strain, and our descendants 

* De Ben. 1. 10. 



74 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

will do the same after us. In reality, however, 
those things do not change, but only fluctuate 
slightly at times like the ebb and flow of the sea ; 
now one vice prevails most, now another, but bad 
men have always existed, and (alas!) always will." 
''Morality, like everything else," says Tacitus, 
" moves round in a circle."* We in the nineteenth 
century have accustomed ourselves to look for and 
expect some progress, but we must at least try to 
avoid the temptation to blacken our ancestors that 
we may make our own improvement seem the 
greater, 

* Tac. Ann. 3. 6& 



( 76 ) 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE GOVEEl^MENT AND SOCIETY. 

It is not possible to draw a sharp dividing line 
between political and social history. It is true that 
the ordinary current of daily life seems to flow on 
almost independent of political changes. Here 
and there the career of individuals or even the 
position of classes may be altered, but after all the 
greater part of our lives is free from the influence 
of government, whether it be republican or des- 
potic. Still there are ways in which the form of 
government materially affects social life, and in 
which a violent change in the constitution may be 
expected to modify the character of a country's 
civilization. It is a matter of great importance 
whether speech is free or not, whether a man may 
in word and with the pen ^^ speak the thing he 
will " : whether he is unfettered in the exercise of 
his religion and the prosecution of his speculations : 
and whether in the education of his children he 



76 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

may use his own discretion as to the subjects taught 
and the maxims inculcated. Again, it is a matter 
of importance whether each individual feels him- 
self a sharer in the government, or whether he 
regards himself merely as a subject, with no voice in 
the making of the laws which he has to obey. It 
is important whether the laws are equal to all 
classes, and whether the citizen has an open career 
before him if his abilities enable him to rise. All 
these matters do affect the social life of a nation, 
though they belong in themselves to politics ; and 
for this reason a short chapter on the social aspect 
of Roman Imperialism seems to be called for. 

The Homeric attribute of kings was '' shepherds 
of the people." The expression sounds genial 
and pleasant, but the converse is less satisfactor}\ 
A nation of civilized men should not be comparable 
to sheep in a sheepfold. A sheepfold may be a 
model of order and good government, but its 
members being without responsibility may be \sith- 
out intelhgence. A community organized on this 
principle is rightly regarded as a low t}'pe of state. 
To a great extent this misfortune had befallen 
Rome in the loss of her freedom. The emperor 
was now the visible embodiment of the consti- 



INCREASING CENTRALIZATION. 77 

tution, and the fountain of all public movement of 
every kind. The tendency to centralization be- 
came so strong that nothing could be done without 
communicating with Rome. The machinery of the 
State seemed complete without the interference of 
private persons : there was now no place for the 
citizen soldier or for the independent republican 
magistrate. As a consequence, the feeling of citizen- 
ship was largely impaired. The Roman felt him- 
self no longer a citizen but a subject, a difference 
by no means unimportant. 

The despotism of the Caesars was not intrusive, 
partly because it was so strong. The military 
force on which it chiefly depended was generally 
kept away at the frontiers, and Rome was not 
annoyed by the presence of a repressive police. 
We do not hear of contiones being forbidden or 
dispersed, and the collegia or clubs, though not 
held in much favour, maintained their existence 
and increased in number and influence. Thought 
and speech were generally free, though with 
exceptions. To take first the matter of education. 
We are surprised to find the absolute freedom of 
subjects which was allowed to teachers. The 
praises of tyrannicide were a common stock-subject 



78 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

for declamation, and the burning questions of past 
history were handled with equal freedom. The 
only occasions, so far as we know, on which this 
liberty was violated, were the banishment of 
Carrinas Secundus by Caligula for declaiming against 
tyrants, the execution of Curiatius Maternus by 
Domitian for the same offence, and that of 
Musonius and Virginius by Nero. Literature 
was more checked.* Good emperors, of course, 
allowed more freedom than tyrants, but taking 
the century as a whole, the fear of offending 
the government, or the desire of conciliating it, 
has an evil influence on both poetry and prose. 
Instances of punishments inflicted on writers are 
not rare ; the fate of Lutorius Prisons, under 
Tiberius, and of Arulenus Rusticus and Herennius 
Senecio, under Domitian, are cases in point. With 
regard to rehgion, the government was very tolerant. 
No compulsion was exercised to make men con- 
form to the State religion ; the utmost latitude of 
thought and practice prevailed without hindrance. 
The only exceptions were in the case of those 
religions which were aggressively hostile to poly- 
theism, and represented a national and disloyal 

* We shall speak of this more fully in another chapter. 



TOLERATION AND ITS LIMITS. 79 

spirit, like that of the Jews, or those which were 
regarded as immoral or grossly superstitious, like 
some imported from Asia Minor and the far East. 
There was, however, one important point connected 
with this subject in which the empire allowed no 
heterodoxy. The worship of the genius of the 
emperor is one of the most curious features of the 
century. It is most difficult for us to put ourselves 
in the frame of mind in which such a worship 
seems possible. We must not, however, regard it 
as merely a political device or an extravagance of 
t3n-anny, for it was clearly much more. No doubt 
fear and sycophancy played an important part 
in the divine honours paid to the emperors, but 
there was a substratum of genuine feeling among 
many of the worshippers. That this was the case 
cannot be doubted by any who have observed the 
numerous notices of the subject in the literature of 
the time. What then was the feeling which 
prompted so extraordinary a manifestation ? Was 
it akin to the honours paid to the heroes and demi- 
gods of mythology ? In part perhaps it was : but 
we must remember that these heroes were sanc- 
tified by antiquity, and exalted by venerable 
tradition, while the imperial ^^gods" actually owed 



80 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

their apotheosis to a vote of the senate, or the 
fihal piety of their successors. It appears certain 
that some emperors never were deified, and that 
their images could accordingly be profaned w-ithout 
sacrilege or treason. Deification was thus, at 
best, the favourable verdict of a prince's successor 
and subjects on his character. It was not custo- 
mar}^ to worship an emperor exactly as a god 
during his lifetime, at least at Rome. Courtiers 
generally spoke of the emperor as ^' our god," 
" Namque erit ille mihi semper deus," " prcesens 
divus habebitur Augustus," which does not quite 
put him on a level with Jupiter and Apollo. The 
decent limitation was, however, less and less 
observed as the century wore on. In the pro- 
\'inces temples were erected to lining emperors by 
the score, and ever\^ token of di\-ine homage was 
rendered to them. At last Domitian threw ofif all 
disguise, and encouraged his courtiers to give him 
the title of ^' lord and god/' We must remember 
that these extravagances were not new. The poor 
oppressed pro\'incials of the east had long been 
accustomed to propitiate their governors by quasi- 
divine honours, and we can easily understand how 
under the empire the degrading practice of servility 



''DIVUS C^SAR."" 81 

extended itself even to Rome. But other reasons 
probably aided the growth of the custom. The 
man who ruled with absolute power the whole of 
the known civilised world must have seemed 
almost superhuman ; it was almost pardonable to 
regard him with the awe inspired by a divine 
being. And not only was his person exalted above 
the rest of mankind, and his power terrible in its 
extent and strength, but he stood forth as the 
representative of that mighty empire, the like of 
which the world had never seen, and which was 
now for the first time concentrated under the 
sceptre of a single man. The senate was no 
longer an assembly of kings, the Roman people 
was no longer an army of generals, but the empire 
was there, more imposing than ever in its wide 
extent and its new tranquillity, and the emperor 
was the living embodiment of its strength and its 
genius. The worship of Rome had really been 
the foundation of the Roman's faith from the lirst ; 
and to some extent the emperor inherited what 
was left of the pious devotion. But whatever was 
the origin of the v/orship, it was enforced with 
atrocious jealousy by the legislation of the time. 
Men were never safe against accusations brought 

F 



82 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

by professional informers of having insulted the 
image of an emperor. Even coins bearing the 
deified features were to be regarded as sacred ; and 
slaves could find an asylum from the lash of an 
infuriated master by taking refuge in the vicinity 
of an imperial statue. To the ordinary citizen 
this part of the law of majestas must have been 
the most galling part of the yoke imposed by the 
despotism. 

Private conversation on politics was made un- 
safe by the machinations of the informers. It was 
considered best to avoid hazardous subjects in 
social gatherings, and specially when wine might 
throw the guests off their guard. This, of course, 
differed at different periods in the century. Some 
emperors discouraged the delatores, and allowed 
their subjects to speak on any subject with free- 
dom, while others had spies in every house, and 
noted every word with jealous tyranny. It is 
more remarkable that in certain particulars the 
Roman populace were able to maintain unimpaired 
their right of free speech. We shall mention here- 
after the ^4icense" of the amphitheatre and the 
circus, where the people were wont to clamour for 
anything they wanted, including the punishment 



FREEDOM OF SPEECH. 83 

of unpopular ministers ; and the telling allusions 
so frequent in the theatre, which were caught up 
readily by the audience. Another characteristic 
privilege was that of pasquinade^ a truly Roman 
invention. Even Nero tolerated the most offensive 
and cutting epigrams against his crimes. After 
he had murdered his mother, the streets of Rome 
were placarded with the following witty couplet : 

" Quis neget jEnese clara de stirpe Neronem ? 
Sustulit hie matrem, sustulit ille patrem ;" 

and Tiberius had to endure the transformation of 
his name into "Biberius Caldius Mero." The most 
abominable accusations were freely made against 
any unpopular ruler, and many of them have found 
their way into the scurrilous work of Suetonius. 
Romans still valued their "simplicity" and "ur- 
banity" of speech, words which were often 
euphemisms for hideous grossness and brutal jesting. 
The license thus allowed them seems, however, to 
deserve mention as a characteristic feature of the 
time. 

We see, then, that the despotism of the Caesars, 
though in some respects mild and liberal in its 
character, was in others sufficiently galhng and 
intrusive to exercise a malign influence on society. 

F2 



84 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

This influence is perceptible in the unreality which 
seems to pervade the hfe of the period. Both in 
daily habits and in literature men seem to be con- 
stantly straining after effect, and thinking anxiously 
how they appear to others. Rome seems to be a 
kind of stage, on which the citizens perform their 
part, as they wish others to see them ; but it is all 
acting, not genuine living. Affectation and hypo- 
crisy reign supreme. Ever3''one tries to hide his 
own nature, and appear something else. The 
noblest spirits are a prey to vanity, and angle for 
compliments from their friends. Added to this, a 
general feeling of insecurity and distrust pervades 
the intercourse of society and checks the free de- 
velopment both of friendship and of genius. This 
paralysis of true healthy life was the price paid by 
Rome for the loss of her freedom, a loss which to 
the superficial observer seemed more than com- 
pensated by the termination of anarchy and the 
establishment of settled order. 

It will not be digressing much to consider how 
Roman society came to acquiesce in the loss of 
liberty consequent on the change of constitution, 
how it probably regarded its position, and what 
compensations it could enjoy. 



PASSION FOR FOREIGN CONQUEST. 85 

In the first place,* the restoration of peace and 
order must have been felt as an immense boon. 
Rome was no longer torn by intestine strife, to 
the delight of Parthians and Germans. Once more 
she could turn her attention to foreign conquest, 
still the passion of all patriots. "The accursed 
civil wars had arrested the progress of the legions, 
which might ere now have subdued Bactria, and 
carried the fasces beyond the Indus. Now the 
victorious eagles will penetrate to Thule and Cale- 
donia, and palm-bearing Idume. There still remain 
new lands to conquer. Babylon does not yet pay 
tribute ; the Arabs and Seres are not yet our sup- 
pliants ; the Indian laurel has yet to be placed in 
the lap of Jove." Such is the language of Silius 
and Statins. From this point of view even patriots 
might regard the empire as a blessing : it certainly 
for the time increased the aggressive power of 
Rome, though a wise policy restrained conquest 
within narrow limits. In fact, security was much 
more important than glory, as Augustus felt. His 
passionate distress at the defeat of Varus was 
caused by his consciousness that the justification 
of the empire really rested in its power to ward 

* See Tac. Ann. 1, 2, on this subject. 



86 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

off foreign attack, and preserve security at home. 
The ^^Pax Romana" was the great gift of Caesarism 
to the world. 

We should also notice the republican avoidance 
of titles and court etiquette which signalised the 
early despotism. The person of the emperor was 
always accessible : he mixed in ordinary society at 
banquets and entertainments : he corresponded 
with his officials in a tone of easy familiarity, as 
we see in the letters between Pliny and Trajan : 
and he never claimed either from subjects or aliens 
the insignia of royalty. When the king of Parthia 
began a despatch, " Arsaces, king of kings, to Fla- 
vins Vespasianus, greeting," that emperor replied 
in the same form, disdaining to notice the arro- 
gance of the Oriental sultan. 

But the idea of subjection to a master could not 
really shock the minds of Romans at this period. 
They were too much used to a society organised 
on this principle. The existence of the slave world 
was a standing contradiction of the rights of man, 
and furnished examples and lessons in servility 
which the masters were not slow to learn. The 
idea of domination and subjection as the natural 
order of things had really penetrated the spirit of 



SERVILE SPIRIT OF THE AGE. 87 

the age, and choked all remaining aspirations after 
liberty. With what satisfaction Statins enunciates 
his theory of universal servitude I 

*' Quid enim terrisque poloque 
Parendi sine lege manet 1 Vice cuncta reguntur, 
Alternisque regunt : propriis sub regibus omnis 
Terra ; premit f elix regum diademata Eoma : 
Hanc ducibus frenare datum : mox crescit in illos 
Imperium superis." 

We seem not far from Claudian's " magnorum 
suboles regum" addressed to an empress. The 
malign influence of slavery was felt by the Romans 
themselves. " You are indignant," says Seneca to 
his countrymen, " if your slave or freedman or 
client dares to answer you again ; and then you 
complain that the liberty which you have destroyed 
at home has been taken from the Republic."* A 
remxarkable passage, which indicates with true dis- 
crimination the source of the diseases of the body 
politic. 

In reality the inhabitants of the Roman empire 
were fitting themselves rapidly for their destiny as 
subjects of an autocrat. We need not expatiate on 
the disintegration of nationalities and the cosmo- 
politan feelings which were growing throughout 

* Sen. de Ira 3. 35. 



SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



the century. The old narrow patriotism, which 
was the safeguard of pohtical freedom, was fast 
disappearing, and men began to pride themselves 
on being citizens of the world, which in all times 
has been a pretext for selfish individuahsm. The 
opening out of the world to trade and travel, was, 
however, a quite legitimate ground of satisfaction. 
It was a real benefit conferred by the empire, and 
one that was highly appreciated. The loss of liberty, 
and of the feelings which liberty fosters, was a mis- 
fortune for which nothing could make up ; but the 
enlargement of sympathies, and opening of the 
mind consequent on the fusion of nationalities, 
were no small compensation. Never before in the 
history of the world (shall we add, never since ?) 
had the nations of the civilised world been brought 
so near each other. Commerce was secured, and 
flourished under a widely extended system of free 
trade ; brigandage and piracy were suppressed, for 
the first time since men began to float ships in the 
Mediterranean ; order and prosperity seemed to 
be established over the whole empire. Never till 
the present century has travel been so easy or so 
frequent ; every one who had money and leisure 
might visit securely the historical scenes of an- 



C03IMERCE AND TRAVEL 



tiquity, the masterpieces of nature's handiwork, or 
the last conquests of civihzation; one language, 
one system of coinage, carried the traveller over 
lands where now all is local and different, and all 
these blessings were the gift of the Eternal City, 
which seemed no longer the mistress but the 
mother of the world. 



" Hsec est, in greminm victos qnse sola recepit, 
Humanumque genus communi nomine f ovit 
Matris non dominge ritu ; civesque vocavit 
Quos domuit, nexuque pio longinqua reyinxit : 
Hujus paciiicis debemus moribus omnes 
Quod veluti patriis regionibus utitur liospes ; 
Quod sedem mutare licet ; quod cernere Thulen 
Lusus, et horrendos quondam penetrare recessua ; 
Quod bibimus passim Khodanum, potamus Oronten, 
Quod cuncti gens una sumus."* 



The provincials gained also in better adminis- 
tration. This was, in gi-eat measure, the conse- 
quence of the more liberal feelings which, as we 
said, were growing up under the empire. It was 
natural that as the exclusiveness of nationality 
diminished, a more generous treatment of subjects 
and aliens was promoted. Some have denied that 

* Claudian de Cons. Stilich. 3. 150-159. 



90 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

this was the case;* but the e\idence for the im- 
provement is very strong. Even such men as 
Petronius and ViteUius were clean-handed as 
governors of provinces, and the testimony of con- 
temporary writers, Philo, Josephus, Strabo, Plutarch, 
and others, is all in favour of the belief that ex- 
tortion and oppression were rarer than under the 
republic. Even the frequency of trials for mal- 
administration is, if rightly considered, a proof of 
the \ngilance of the central government in the 
interest of the provinces. 

Another pleasing feature in this connection is the 
encouragement and practice of what we may call 
municipal patriotism. It is a side of Roman life 
which fairly belongs to our subject. We hear fre- 
quently of grants from the treasury to aid sufferers 
from accidents. Thus six milhons of sesterces were 
given to Lugdunum after a fire in the year 65 ;t ten 
millions in 53 to Bononia.l: Augustus and Ves- 
pasian both practised the sam.e munificence on 

* On this side may be mentioned the picture di-a^rn by Juvenal 
8. 87-139 ; the cases of Valerius Messalla in Asia, under Augustus, 
of Silius in Germany, of Piso in Spain, and of Felix and Pontius 
Pilate in Judasa. The evidence on the other side is, however, 
much stronger. 

t Tac. Ann. 16. 13. 

J Tac. Ann. 12. 58. 



MUNICIPAL PATRIOTISM. 91 

several occasions. The early emperors did not 
build much in provincial to^\^ls except by way of 
indemnity for accident, but they encouraged private 
citizens to erect public buildings in their native 
towns, and the practice became very common. We 
recognise, with pleasure, some remains of the old 
patriotism surviving in this shape. Rich men took 
a pride in embellishing their own towns with baths, 
libraries, temples, and other public buildings. En- 
do^vments for education, or the relief of the desti- 
tute, became common, and even small country 
towns often enjoyed these advantages through the 
liberality of their citizens. 

Such acts of munificence must have been a poor 
substitute for genuine patriotism, but it may be 
doubted whether many felt the deprivation. For 
the generality of Rome's subjects and citizens in 
the first century the empire must have seemed a 
desirable institution, which enabled them to satisfy 
most of their wants, and live in comparative com- 
fort and security. Material prosperity is always 
the main thing with the mass of mankind; and 
those nobler sentiments which sometimes lead men 
to rise above it were, as we have said, scarcely 
possible in the first century. The intellectual 



92 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

voluptuary who represented the upper class at 
Rome found himself quite in his element ; and those 
who had to work for their living, so far as their 
position was altered, found more security and 
better chances of profit and success than in the 
disordered times of the Republic. Regrets and 
discontent were chiefly confined to the philoso- 
phers, a class, morally important, but numerically 
insignificant, whose exalted theories raised them 
above content in ease and indolence, and revealed 
to them the true significance of the empire of the 
Caesars. 



( S3 ) 



CHAPTER V. 



LITEEATUEE AND AET. 

The victory of Augustus was probably a misfor- 
tune for Roman literature, though few would have 
predicted a decline while that brilliant company of 
poets and historians flourished under the Imperial 
patronage of the second Caesar. But though the 
immediate results of the Empire were splendid, 
the cramping and paralysing influence of despotism 
was not long in making itself felt. It acted in 
three ways. First, it obliged writers to spoil their 
work and do violence to their conscience by direct 
flattery to the reigning emperor. This was carried 
to a monstrous extent, and was practised even by 
the most honourable men. Next the loss of free 
speech corrupted the intellectual honesty and manly 
straightforwardness of the community. Men ceased 
to be their real selves, and to speak their real senti- 
ments, even when no danger threatened them. 
The literature of our period is pervaded by affecta- 



94 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

tion, hollow rhetoric, and a constant straining after 
effect. Words, not things, were the first object 
with poet and prose writer alike : men cared less 
to say what was true and of sterling worth than 
to gain a transitory reputation by following the 
shallow taste of the day. Again, despotism in- 
fluenced the proportion of the kinds of composition. 
Poetry gained at the expense of prose; histon-, 
which was a very congenial pursuit to the Romans 
of the Republic, became ver\' dangerous, and we 
have suffered by the discouragement thus given to 
historians, as well as by the trammels which fettered 
those who did venture to write. In the reign of 
Tiberius, Titus Labienus, while reading his history 
to his firiends, turned over several pages, with the 
remark " These wiU be read after my death." His 
caution, however, did not save him, for his book was 
confiscated and burnt. A stronger instance is that 
of Cremutius Cordus, who was actually accused and 
driven to suicide rbr calling Cassius "the last of 
the Romans.' His book was also burnt, but copies 
of it were hidden and afterwards pubhshed. We 
can only be surprised that such t^Tann}- did not 
ruin hterature altogether. Happily the better em- 
perors allowed much more fireedom, and the worst 



FFECT OF DESPOTISM ON LITERATURE. 95 

tyrants were not suffered to reign till the natural 
end of their lives. Still, the mischief done to his- 
tory was great, as Tacitus himself confesses. Facts 
were suppressed or falsified during an emperor's 
lifetime, and exaggerated through hatred after his 
death. 

Another cause of the unreality of Roman litera- 
ture at this epoch is to be found in the system of 
education. Declamation and poetry formed the 
staple subjects, and poetry was chiefly taught as 
an aid to declamation. The pupil was instructed 
in composing themes on given subjects, sometimes 
delivering a harangue to an imaginary jury, some- 
times writing an essay to prove a given proposi- 
tion, sometimes arguing with another pupil in the 
presence of the instructor, as used to be done at 
Cambridge. Questions of casuistry were often 
chosen, the pupil, of course, taking the side 
assigned him by the teacher. This system was 
only too well calculated to develope the tendency 
of the age to affectation, unreality, and empty 
declamation. We see the fruits of it as well in 
Lucan as in Seneca, in Statins as in Velleius. 

We may also notice the evil effect of the " caco- 
ethes scribendi " which had come upon the Roman 



96 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

people. We find various artifices ob^iously em- 
ployed to catch the popular ear, which else might 
have failed to notice the work in the multitudinous 
buzz of poetasters and rhetoricians. The means 
employed are those with which we are so painfully 
familiar in the nineteenth centur}^ One writer 
tries to let off a perpetual fire of squibs or epi- 
grams : another daubs on his colours to be seen a 
mile off: another plays bold tricks with spitax 
and construction : a fourth en^^Taps himself in 
mystif}ang obscurity. All endeavour to be striking 
in one way or another, and, of course, all fail to 
retain the grace and dignity of true genius. 

It is time, however, to specify more accurately 
the literary movements of the century. The 
ordinar}^ division into the Julian and Flavian eras 
is no arbitrary one, but a real coincidence. The 
accession of Vespasian, so important a landmark 
in other branches of our subject, is equally so as 
the beginning of a reaction in literature against the 
fashions of the last half centur}\ It is to this 
earlier division that our remarks above mainly 
apply. The reign of Tiberius exemplifies the 
deadening weight ^^^ith which t}Tanny can oppress 
literature. As the brilliant names of the Augustan 



POST- A UG USTAN LITERA TUBE, 97 

era disappear, a dull blank succeeds. All seems 
under a cloud. Perhaps the shadow of the great 
names had a depressing effect as well as the 
jealousy of the Emperor. Then under Claudius 
the copious stream of silver age literature bursts 
forth with all its transient vivacity. The charac- 
teristics of the age are a feverish extravagance and 
unrestrained violence of expression. It is the 
saturnalia of the declaimer. History is repre- 
sented by two works pubHshed before the death of 
Tiberius, the servile and affected book of Velleius, 
and the feeble and rhetorical anecdotes of 
Valerius Maximus. Seneca, the noblest figure of 
the age, extorts our admiration by his steady per- 
ception of objective or abstract morality, and by 
his philanthropic desire to improve his fellow men, 
in both of which points he marks a real advance in 
the moral theory of his age. He has not, how- 
ever, escaped the vicious style of his contem- 
poraries. He is declamatory, epigrammatic, jerky, 
sometimes unreal in tone. We cannot deny the 
truth of Quintilian's criticism that he sacrificed true 
excellence of style to gain the applause of the 
vulgar. In Lucan, the representative of the age in 
poetry, the same faults appear most clearly. His 

G 



98 SOCIAL LIFE IN HOME. 

epic is a string of declamations, the intervening 
narrative (often really the most important) is 
hurried over whenever it does not lend itself to his 
rhetoric ; and so the proportion and even the in- 
telligibility of the poem is seriously impaired. The 
violent exaggeration of the descriptions offends our 
taste as much as the affectation of learning ; and 
the poet shews an evident relish for detailed scenes 
of torture and bloodshed, which suggests that he or 
his patrons were deeply corrupted in their taste by 
the horrors of the amphitheatre. His flattery of 
Nero, though nauseous enough, is perhaps excu- 
sable. These writers, though vastly inferior to 
their predecessors of the time of Augustus, have 
yet to some extent the merit of originality. They 
were not conscious of their defects, and therefore 
disdained to borrow their style or their matter 
from those who had gone before them. Lucan 
seldom imitates Virgil ; Seneca owes little to Cicero. 
Petronius may even claim the merit of attaining 
excellence in an almost new branch of literature. 
For a few years Rome was satisfied with the new 
development ; but its faults were too apparent 
to escape detection for long ; and with the death 
of Nero the inevitable reaction set in. 



TEE FLA VIAN ERA. 99 

" Scripsit majore cura quam ingenio" is Pliny's 
criticism on Silius Italicus, and this, as Merivale 
says, may be taken as the motto of the Flavian 
era. A strong reaction now set in against the 
school of Lucan and Seneca, and men began to 
turn with pleasure to the nobler works of the 
Augustan age. The affectation and unreality 
which had been growing during the last fifty years 
had now become really intolerable ; there was no 
remedy except in conscious imitation of better 
models. Accordingly the poets of this period, 
Statins and Silius, are close, though not servile, 
imitators of Virgil ; they lack the vigour of Lucan, 
but avoid his worst faults. It cannot be said, how- 
ever, that they impress us with their reality. 
Statins gives us a constant succession of pretty 
word-paintings, composed rather with a view to 
the recitation-hall than to satisfy the student of 
the " Thebaid" as a whole. It is '* ars," not " in- 
genium," throughout ; he is never dull, but never 
inspiring or inspired. This elaboration of parts at 
the expense of the whole is characteristic of the 
autumn of a literature ; the influence of recitations 
is peculiar to Rome, but not characteristic of this 
era. On the contrary, most of the Flavian litera- 

G2 



100 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

ture was obviously meant to be read, not recited. 
In fact, the eternal recitations had become such a 
nuisance that the public began to strike against 
them. Martial describes the poet \\ith his manu- 
script as more formidable than a tigress robbed 
of her whelps. The cheapness of books made the 
system really useless,* and only the laziness of the 
public, and, perhaps, the crabbed ^^Titing of the 
manuscripts, had allowed recitation to flourish as 
long as it did. Silius is an agreeable but not a 
very powerful ^Titer. His epic is tolerably well 
arranged, and contains few faults of taste. Both 
he and Statius are sobriety itself compared v,^th 
Lucan. 

There are indications that the material condition 
of the poet had not changed for the better since 
the Julian era. Some poets (e.g. Silius) were rich 
men, and free from anxiety of this kind; but 
Martial is perpetually begging for money from the 
emperor and from his friends, and he does not 
seem to have got anything from Domitian, in spite 
of his servility. Martial shews us other annoy- 
ances of the poet's life : the unscrupulous pla- 

* We should, notice also tlie increase of public libraries about 
this time. Eventually Eome contained no less than 28 of thes6 
institutions. 



MARTIAL. 101 



giarism of bad writers, and their equally dishonest 
habit of fathering their own productions upon a 
great name. Again, the jealousy of literary men 
shews itself disagreeably. Martial seems to have 
had a chronic quarrel with Statins. On the other 
hand, Pliny the Younger seems to have been on 
the pleasantest terms with his literary contem- 
poraries. 

Martial is the most brilliant representative of the 
Flavian era. His epigrams are absolutely perfect 
of their kind, and have never been surpassed or 
even rivalled. The obscenity which disfigures 
them is an evil sign of the times, but it was consi- 
dered a necessary adjunct of that kind of poetry. 
Even the virtuous and refined Pliny composed 
some very improper epigrams, which have come 
down to us. Martial, however, carried it to 
excess, in his thirst for popularity and patronage. 
His servility is hardly less offensive than his inde- 
cency. In this, however, he was rivalled by 
Statins, who did not grudge his incense to the 
freedmen Etruscus aud Abascantus. 

Juvenal in some respects belongs to the age 
before him. His ideas are old-fashioned, reflecting 
the hardness and exclusivenes of the ancient 



102 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Roman character, which was now so fast disap- 
pearing. His invectives against the Greeks, his 
hatred of parvenus, his coarse ferocity in deahng 
with the female sex, are all part of this retro- 
spective tendency. He left no successor and no 
imitator in the second century. 

To turn to the prose of the Flavian era. The 
leader and mouthpiece of the reaction is Quintilian, 
He metes out much less than justice to Seneca and 
his school, and is never tired of setting up Cicero 
as the canon of good taste and good style. His 
own work is admirable, of its kind; clear, thoughtful, 
and temperate. His criticisms are all worthy of 
attention, and are delivered without affectation or 
bombast. 

The graver tone of the age was reflected in its 
histories. The old conception of the historian, as 
an artist in prose, whose pictures were founded, 
indeed, on real events, but were avowedly embel- 
lished for the pleasure of his readers, was no longer 
deemed sufficient. In Tacitus we have a historian 
of the modern kind ; a man with a mission and a 
purpose, who is terribly in earnest with his facts 
and theories. In spite of the crippling influence of 
tyranny, which no doubt thinned the ranks of 



TACITUS AND THE PLINIES. 103 

historians, we welcome one name, at least, of the 
highest genius in this difficult time. 

The industry of the aristocratic student is well 
typified in the elder Pliny, whose habits we have 
already described. His work is an undigested 
congeries of facts, the sweepings of a hundred note 
books, which do not derive any of their value from 
the medium through which they have been trans- 
mitted to posterity. His nephew is a more in- 
teresting character. His letters have been well 
described as giving us our best picture of the Roman 
gentleman. The expression aptly denotes the 
character of the man as he has drawn it for us him- 
self. No other work of Roman literature gives us 
so high an idea of the real civilisation of the age as 
Pliny's letters. They show a refinement of ideas 
and true culture which are not apparent in his con- 
temporaries, and they are thus a valuable corrective 
of the common tendency to brand Roman civilisa- 
tion as only material and external. In most ways 
Pliny is nearer the nineteenth century than any 
writer of the middle ages. His tastes, sympathies, 
and even modes of expression, are strangely modern. 
Now he describes the beauties of nature with a fine 
appreciation; now he interests himself in founding 



104 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

a school and free library at his native town ; now 
he writes a letter of condolence or of recommenda- 
tion; now he shews graceful consideration for 
his dependents. All is amazingly modem — rather 
French than English in its vanity and want of 
reserve, but nearer to us than the English writings 
of the time of Elizabeth. 

It remains to notice the reaction in favour of 
the ante-Augustan poets which took place in the 
early empire. Even the great Augustan poets 
themselves were attacked for disparaging criticism 
of Lucilius and Ennius'. But the new style at first 
carried all before it. The archaic school comes 
into prominence in the last half of the century, and 
grows in strength till it culminates about the time 
of the Antonines. In our period it had not yet 
gained its victory. Horace and Virgil were not 
yet displaced by Naevius and Ennius ; Cicero still 
held the field against Caius Gracchus and Cato. 
But the tendency to neglect the modems was 
increasing all the time. It was a sign that the 
nation was losing its taste, and felt that it was 
losing it. The rugged efforts of the founders of 
Latin poetry were admired not for themselves, 
but as being free from the false accretions of later 



TASTE FOR ARCHAIC LITERATURE. 105 

times. Men could not even venture to set up the 
Augustans as models, for fear of imbibing the first 
beginnings of decadence. The only safe course 
seemed to be to go back as far as possible, and 
worry the minds of schoolboys with the uncouth 
and obsolete phrases of the third and second cen- 
turies, B.C., which, at least, no one could accuse of 
meretricious ornament or emasculate smoothness. 
We notice even in the mature writings of the silver 
age the reappearance of several words which had 
passed out of use for a hundred years, doubtless 
the result of this fashion in education. 

In the fine arts, sculpture, painting, and music, 
Rome fully acknowledged her inferiority to Greece, 
and proudly disdained to compete with her. The 
well-known hues of Virgil — 

" Escudent alii spirantia mollius sera 
Credo equidem, et vivos ducent de marmore viiltus ; 
Tu regere imperio populos, Eomane, memento," 

are a faithful expression of Roman feeling on the 
subject. Art was beneath the dignity of the con- 
querors of the world. The most ardent patriotism 
need not blush to confess inferiority in the use of 
the chisel or the paint-brush. But in truth it was 
not only pride but conscious inability that pre- 



106 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

vented Italy from entering the field in art-compe- 
tition watli Greece. For many generations Rome 
had been full of the masterpieces of Phidias, Poly- 
cletus, Apelles, and Mentor, but no Roman school 
of sculpture or painting was brought into being by 
the presence of these works of genius. No books 
on art from a Roman pen called the attention of 
citizens to the special beauties of each artist ; no 
real appreciation of art is shewn even by the culti- 
vated poets of the first century. The raptures of 
Statius over a grand collection or an imposing 
building are not those of the artist ; the x^ugustan 
poets scarcely mention the "nation of statues" 
that adorned the streets and temples of the capi- 
tal. In republican times devotion to art was dis- 
couraged and despised. Marcellus, who captured 
Syracuse, was severely blamed for introducing the 
taste for Greek art into Rome, and thus diverting 
the attention of the citizens from more useful 
pursuits. Cicero in the trial of Verres explains to 
the jury that the Greeks attach a quite unaccount- 
able importance to the works of certain sculptors, 
of which Verres had deprived them. Even in our 
period, when the fire under Nero destroyed an 
innumerable quantity of precious masterpieces, his- 



WANT OF ARTISTIC TASTE. 107 

torians content themselves with mentioning the 
bare fact, without regret or comment. There was, 
however, growing up a sentiment of admiration for 
art, which never, indeed, developed into an intelli- 
gent appreciation, but shewed itself in a wide- 
spread dilettantism and passion for collecting, and 
a great deal of pretence of knowledge. It was 
common for these amateurs to profess that they 
were able to distinguish the works of one great 
m-aster from another, and to discover at a glance 
a spurious imitation. Antique bronzes could be 
tested, so they averred, by the smell. Trimalchio 
tells his guests that he would give up anything 
rather than his faculty as an art critic — a talent 
which he proceeds to illustrate by the most absurd 
blunders in explaining the mythological subjects in 
his collection. It was, indeed, inevitable that the 
Romans, in patronising an art which they did not 
understand and seldom tried to practise, should 
appear in the light of parvenus who fill their 
houses with masterpieces which they cannot appre- 
ciate, or with imitations which they cannot detect. 
The chief exceptions to this insensibility seem to 
be Pliny the Younger and Lucian, especially the 
latter. Pliny took a genuine pleasure in the Corin- 



108 SOCIAL LIFE IN HOME. 

thian statuettes and other works of art "with which 
he adorned his houses ; and Lucian, when he men- 
tions the subject, shows a fine discrimination, more 
Greek than Roman. The causes of this defect in 
Roman cultivation seem to be three. First, the 
natural incapacity of the Roman mind to under- 
stand and appreciate artistic genius : next, the low 
position occupied by most sculptors and painters, 
who were generally either slaves or freedmen : 
and, thirdly, the want of life and originality in the 
artistic world itself, which prevented it from ex- 
citing public interest or claiming public admiration. 
This last reason may be, perhaps, demurred to. 
We do not find it easy to associate the notion of 
decline with the age which produced, e.g., the 
Laocoon group*, or the majestic portrait-statue of 
Nerva. But we have now unfortunately lost most 
of the splendid Greek originals which gave a model 
to all sculptors of the Roman age — works of genius 
which completely threw into the shade the feebler 
efforts of y) hvXij 'E\\a«5. The most skilful imita- 
tions (and some of them are works of great talent) 
could not arouse the same enthusiasm as new crea- 
tions from the hand of a real genius ; and the con- 

* The latest authorities on archasolog^' now ascribe this statue 
to an earlier date. 



SCULPTURE. 109 



sciousness of this deterioration may have had much 
to do with the flagging interest which the public 
took in the painter's or sculptor's studio. 

Virgil was right in naming sculpture as the art 
in which ^' others " most excelled his countrTmen. 
Very few men of Italian birth attempted sculpture. 
It was then and for ever the birthright of the 
Greeks, and no Roman attempted to dispute that 
supremacy. The modern writer is tempted to 
linger with mixed wonder and regret over this 
most exquisite product of the old civilisation. 
When we visit London, and come suddenly upon 
one of the grotesque statues with which our 
metropolis is disfigured, we cannot help marvel- 
ling how an art once so perfect should have been 
so completely lost. What must have been the 
beauty of a city of the ancient world, where every 
street, every temple, every open space, was en- 
nobled by those exquisite forms of marble and 
bronze, the mutilated remnants of which are the 
greatest feast for modern eyes ? These triumphs 
of human genius, which had formerly been the 
pride of every Greek city, from Massilia to Asia 
Minor, were now for the most part transferred to 
Rome and other Italian towns. The discovery of 



no SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Herculaneum and Pompeii first revealed to us 
how widely diffused was the possession of statuary, 
and how rich even second-class towns were in 
this species of embellishment. As to Rome 
itself, it was crowded with statues. Every open 
space in the city was occupied by monumental 
figures of eminent citizens, and the Thermae, 
temples, and other public buildings were decorated 
by the spoils of many a Greek city. These statues 
may be divided into three classes — those which 
were dedicated to religion, those which were 
erected as monuments to particular persons, and 
those which were merely ornamental. With 
regard to the first, the numerous temples were 
adorned with a large number of statues repre- 
senting deities, which were very often votive 
offerings ; and family worship also had its 
images, generally of a humbler kind. Nero, 
for example, like Louis XIV., was superstitiously 
devoted to certain images, and carried about 
with him an ^' icuncula puellaris " as a charm. 
Such images were much used by travellers to 
protect them against ship\^Teck. The second 
class of statues, those which were put up as monu- 
ments, were still more numerous and important. 



STATUES OF TEE EMPERORS. Ill 

The custom of erecting statues to distinguished 
men had existed at Rome for a long time, as well 
as that of filling the atrium with wax masks 
representing ancestors. But the Empire deve- 
loped the usage to an extent unheard of before. 
The statues and busts of the emperors alone 
were visible in every street, and almost every 
house. They were protected by the most 
t5T:annical legislation, so that to mutilate or 
destroy one of them was a crime punished by 
death, and even to strip or beat a slave in sight 
of a bust of the emperor might be made a 
capital offence. Hence, slaves were accustomed 
to fly for refuge to these statues, and the tyranny 
of the Caesars may indirectly have saved many 
slaves from the fury of their masters. Not only 
was it treason to shew disrespect to the image of 
the reigning emperor, but those of his prede- 
cessors who had obtained divine honours were 
protected with the same severity. A few of the 
worst tyrants, however, received different treat- 
ment. The statues and busts of Nero and 
Domitian were broken and hurled do^vn by 
the exulting populace immediately after their 
deaths, so that very few representations of them 



112 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

remained. The same posthumous vengeance was 
she^\Ti to the statues of Sejanus, who had filled 
Rome with portrait-images of himself. In a few 
hours after the death of the detested minister, 
the face, which had lately been the second in the 
whole world, was made into " pitchers and pans 
and kettles and pots."* A more economical but 
less usual plan was to decapitate the statues of 
the deceased emperor, and place the head of his 
successor on the shoulders. This, however, was 
deemed disrespectful, and was only resorted to in 
rare instances, e.g., the Colossus of Nero, which 
bore several heads before Commodus transformed 
it into a Hercules, after his ovm likeness. Statues 
of private persons, both lining and dead, were 
extremely numerous. In republican days this 
had been a distinction ; now even^ one might 
have a statue, and if he had no friends or clients 
to give him one he might put it up himself. 
Even circus jockeys had their statues, with their 
horses and chariots. The Forum became so fall 
that on one occasion at least it had to be cleared. 
Absurd as this custom was, it must have added 
very much to the beauty of a to^^-n, pro\-ided that 
the statues were good, as they generally were. 

* Juv. 10. 56, (fee. 



ORNAMENTAL SCULPTURE. 113 

Statues of a purely ornamental or artistic kind 
were also very numerous. It was this kind of 
sculpture which was taken in such quantities from 
the Greek cities. Some of the emperors, especi- 
ally Nero, plundered the eastern provinces of 
their works of art to a shameful extent, the 
statues being used partly in the decoration of the 
palace and partly in that of baths, theatres, &c. 
Private persons were equally assiduous in collect- 
ing, and no wealthy family was without its gallery 
of sculpture. Of the character of the decorative 
statues we can judge from those which have been 
discovered ; some, perhaps the largest number, 
represented gods or mythological scenes, thus 
combining religion with art, as in modem times ; 
others were studies of some favourite subject, 
such as a boy wrestling with a goose, or an athlete 
preparing for a contest ; the majority were copies 
or imitations of some Greek original. The wide 
diffusion of this branch of art is quite unparallelled 
in later times ; it gave all classes of the community 
the advantages which are now confined to a few, 
and enabled the citizen to have images of grace 
and beauty constantly before his eyes. 
The art of painting was less exclusively con- 

H 



114 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

fined to the Greeks than that of sculpture. 
From Fabius Pictor, the historian, downwards, 
several Romans painted, and lessons in drawing 
and painting were given in high -class schools. 
Unfortunately very little of ancient pictorial art 
has been preserved to us. We have enough to- 
make us deeply regret that we have no more, but 
not enough to give us a clear idea of the charac- 
teristic features of classical painting. We know, 
however, that it was as widely difhised as the sister 
art, and that Rome was full of pictures, both de- 
corative and monumental. Just as statues were 
erected to commemorate persons and events, so 
pictures were publicly exhibited for the same pur- 
pose. In triumphs and pubhc celebrations pictures 
always formed part of the show. It is charac- 
teristic of the Romans that pictorial representations 
were often made to take the place of placards, 
advertisements, and votive tablets. Even in the 
law court one of the parties would sometimes pre- 
sent the jury with a series of pictures to illustrate 
the disreputable habits of his opponent. Beggars 
carried large boards painted with the history of 
their misfortunes — the fire or the shipwreck which 
had deprived them of their worldly goods. The 



PAINTING. 115 



temples of the gods were full of votive pictures, so 
that Isis, who saved men from shipwreck, was the 
best patroness of painters. Private houses were 
always decorated with graceful wall-paintings re- 
presenting scenes, figures, fruit and flowers, or 
mere patterns. For the most part Roman wall- 
decoration seems to have been far superior to ours, 
and to have frequently reached a high degree of 
artistic beauty. Many admirable pictures were 
painted on house-walls, or worked in mosaic on 
the floor. Another use of painting was in the 
illustration of books, which often contained a 
portrait of the author or a representation of his 
subject on the title-page. Portrait painting was 
very common, but we have no means of knowing 
whether it was well done or not. It appears that 
painters often gratified the vanity of their sitters 
by improving their features in the portrait. We 
see then that painting, both decorative and other- 
wise, was as universal in the first century as it is 
now. The extent of the art is the more remark- 
able, when we remember that the Romans had 
none of those mechanical aids — printing of wall- 
papers, engraving, photography, &c. — which have 
so largely increased the number of artistic designs 

H 2 



116 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

in every place in Europe. It is improbable that 
the early empire surpassed modem Europe in the 
diffusion of painting, since these aids to multipli- 
cation have been discovered ; but the vast quantity 
which evidently existed speaks highly for the 
artistic energy of the old civilisation. 

Of the third of the fine arts, music, we do not 
propose to say much. Although our music is, to a 
great extent, derived, by continuous tradition, from 
that of the ancients, there is a wide difference 
between them. Music, among the Greeks and 
Romans, was far simpler and plainer, and, so to 
speak, less ambitious. A piece of lyric poetry set 
to music, as all lyric poetry was meant to be, was 
not disguised, but elucidated by the tune. The 
air merely brought out the sense, and was sub- 
servient to it : the words were the first thing, the 
music the second. In longer pieces, such as Ovid's 
Elegiacs, which were sung and danced to at the 
theatres, the music must have been a mere re- 
citative. We have, of course, no examples of 
ancient music to judge by, but to all appearance 
the Italians were then, as now, noted for their fine 
ear and critical appreciation of music. The chief 
instruments used were the lyre and the flute, each 



MUSIC. 117 



of which was modified in several different forms. 
The chief places where music was performed were 
the theatres, where it was an indispensable part 
of the entertainment, and private houses, where 
trained choirs of slaves were employed to sing and 
play to the guests at dinner, or for the delectation 
of their master alone. In our century complaints, 
no doubt well founded, were made that the art of 
music was being corrupted by popular innovations 
in style, and still more by the sensual character of 
the new compositions, which pandered to the 
worst tastes of the populace. Singers and players 
from Spain and from the eastern provinces did 
much to spread this evil. But the most charac- 
teristic feature of our period is not the degradation 
of music, but the abatement of the national pre- 
judice against it. In republican days a Roman 
would have been ashamed to own himself a skilled 
musician, and a matron would have considered 
such an accomplishment highly derogatory to her 
dignity. Now both sexes gave themselves to a 
study of music with an eagerness which did not, 
indeed, pass unrebuked, but was not in any way 
checked by the upholders of ancient prejudices. 
Great, indeed, was the change from the time when 



118 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Scipio ^milianus delivered a scathing invective in 
the senate against schools of music and dancing, 
at one of which he had even seen the son of a 
Roman magistrate ! Now music, at least, was part 
of a liberal education, and probably most boys of 
good position attended lessons in singing and harp- 
playing. Nero was, of course, the greatest patron 
of the art. He, in fact, was so completely eman- 
cipated from the traditions and prejudices of his 
countrymen, that he loved best to pose as a pro- 
fessional artist, and exhibited his skill in public, 
like any Greek citharoedus. This, it is true, gave 
the greatest offence, but the enthusiasm of the 
emperor for music gave a stimulus to the practice 
of the art, among other ways by leading to the 
foundation of a musical contest held at Rome. 
Women of good family also studied music, and 
even composed their own melodies. So far had 
the old order changed under the influence of Greek 
manners and new luxury I 



( 119 ) 



CHAPTER VI. 

GEADES OF SOCIETY. 

We propose in this chapter to give a sketch of the 
component parts of Roman society, from the palace 
to the hovel. The gradations of rank were always 
rather strongly marked at Rome, and the taste for 
external decorations was kept up under the Empire 
as much as under the Republic. Hence, in spite 
of the democratic basis of the Empire, there were 
still lines of demarcation between the senator and 
the knight, and between the citizen and the pro- 
vincial, as well as the broad difference between the 
free-born and the slave. Between the magistrate 
at Rome and his porter were many intermediate 
grades, sharply defined in theory, though often 
overstepped in practice. It will be well to take 
these in order, noticing on the way whatever seems 
interesting or characteristic in the various occupa- 
tions of the community. 
The Caesars had, properly speaking, no court. 



120 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Their households resembled those of ordinary 
Roman nobles. Such system of etiquette as there 
was was only designed to keep out intruders from 
the palace, not to make the monarchy more im- 
posing. Hence there were none of those court 
officials who now surround every palace — men of 
noble birth who feel honoured by holding some 
post in the royal household. No Caesar employed 
senators or their wives to perform menial offices 
for him : such attendants as he required were 
chosen from the class of slaves or freedmen. Even 
honourable and responsible posts, such as that of 
secretary, were filled by fireedmen. This was ex- 
clusively the case under the earlier emperors, but 
Tacitus* says that Vitellius in his short reign intro- 
duced the innovation of employing knights for 
these posts instead of freedmen. Vespasian and 
Titus may have followed his example, but Domitian 
appears to have reverted to the old plan, and Spar- 
tianusf says that Hadrian was the first to employ 
a knight as secretary. We must, then, remember 
that the permanent posts about the palace were 
held by men of low extraction, who had generally 
once been slaves. These freedmen had generally 

* Tac. H. 1. 58. t Spartian. Hadr. 58. 



CESAR'S HOUSEHOLD, 121 

gained their advancement by their own quahties. 
Under good emperors they were often able and 
trustworthy men ; under the worst, they were 
often the vilest of their sex. In either case a pre- 
carious but very great power was in their hands, 
and they often amassed fortunes unheard of before, 
and hardly equalled anywhere until the present 
century. Pallas had three hundred millions of 
sesterces, Narcissus four hundred millions ; and 
others became nearly as rich. The chief offices at 
court which we hear of are the control of the 
accounts (a rationibus)y that of petitions {a 
libellis), and the post of private secretary (ab 
epishi lis). JTmport3.nt administrative offices were 
usually given to men of higher rank, particularly 
to the knights. The freedmen who attained high 
posts were generally Greeks, rarely Syrians, Egyp- 
tians, or Gauls. T 

The court ceremonial was, as we have said, 
very slight. It chiefly consisted in the morning 
visit of the emperor s friends, a custom which was 
by no means confined to the court, but was prac- 
tised habitually by the friends and clients of 
wealthy nobles. The only difference was that 
owing to the crowds of persons who wished to 



1?2 SOCIAL LIFE IX HOME. 

pay their respects to the emperor it was necessary 
to have guards roimd the gates, and to search 
visitors vrho might be suspected of meditating 
treason. Even these precautions were not alwnays 
adopted. Generally speaking those only might 
call in this way who were included in the list of 
the emperors "fiiends," a term which came to 
have a very definite signification. The " friends " 
of the emperor were divided into three classes, of 
which the first consisted of senators and other 
magnates, the second chiefly of knights and 
others of a less exalted station than the fiist class, 
while the third contained persons who had won 
fcivour with the emperor by their own gifts — 
poets, rhetoricians, philosophers, and such like. 
Sometimes a token was g: r : these privileged 
persons, by which they migni gain admittance. 
This institution of " firiends " was also a develop- 
ment of a republican custom. Both in these 
morning visits, and when dining with the em- 
peror, the toga was always worn. 

Leaviog the palace, we come next to the Senate, 
that once august assembly which might boast the 
proudest traditions of any aristocratic body in the 
world. The old femilies, whose names appeared 



TEE SENATE. 123 



SO often in the consular Fasti, had most of them 
died out before the end of our period. Civil war, 
proscriptions, and celibacy, had made sad havoc of 
their ranks before the beginning of the century, 
and the decay went on even in the peaceful reigns 
which followed. Their places were filled by new 
men of various classes. Some were knights of 
good parentage, promoted according to custom to 
the superior rank ; others were obscure citizens 
whom fortune or merit had advanced ; others 
were Italians and even provincials. Julius Caesar 
bore the reproach of being the first to introduce 
trousered Gauls into the Senate, but his example 
was followed by his successors, and the " right of 
senatorship" became a coveted privilege in pro- 
vincial towms. Even sons of freedmen had 
become senators before the reign of Nero, ^vho 
tried in vain to stop the abuse. Before the end 
of the century many senatorial families were of 
servile descent. The means by which these 
parvenus made their way into the senate were, 
of course, very various. Military reputation was, 
perhaps, the rarest and most honourable. Per- 
sonal services to the emperor, among which the 
most common was the infamous trade of informer, 



124 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

were an easier and more usual road to rank 
and dignity. The influx of these new men did 
not at all diminish the respect ^\'ith which society 
regarded such of the old families as still survived. 
Indeed, the tendency was to pay an exaggerated 
deference to noble birth, and to excuse in an 
^milius or Silanus faults which would have been 
fatal to the reputation of an ordinary man. 
Juvenal in one of his best known satires, bears 
testimony to the absurd respect paid to old 
families, whose halls were full of the battered and 
blackened effigies of republican heroes, and 
adorned with pedigrees reaching even to Olympus. 
His \agorous assertions '^ miserum est ahorum 
incumbere famae," '^ nobilitas sola est atque unica 
virtus," only shew how far the contrar}' opinion 
prevailed in the \*ulgar mind. Additional testi- 
mony to the interest taken in genealogies is 
furnished by the records of books on the subject. 
Varro wrote a treatise on those families which 
claimed Trojan descent. Atticus had explored 
the antiquities of noble families. Messala, under 
Augustus, wrote on the same subject. Nor did 
the taste wane in the next generation. We hear 
of fictitious genealogies being manufactured for 



THE SENATE. 125 



nouveaux riches ; and Vespasian on his accession 
found flatterers anxious to make him a pedigree. 
Senators of old family, who had become so em- 
poverished as no longer to possess the " senatorial 
census " of 1,200,000 sesterces, were often sub- 
sidized from the Imperial exchequer to save them 
from losing their rank. The sons of men of 
" senatorial family " became senators as matter of 
of course, and the old custom of allowing them as 
children to attend the debates with their fathers 
was revived. By degrees the Senate became a 
kind of hereditary peerage, instead of the selected 
body of former days.^ The dignity of the senator 
was kept up by several external privileges. He 
was distinguished by the broad purple border of 
his toga, and by his black sandals adorned by a 
silver crescent; special seats were reserved for 
his order at the public games, and he might dine 
in the Capitol at the public expense. But much 
of his consideration doubtless rested on the 
wealth which he usually possessed. The limit of 
1,200,000 sesterces was intended to exclude poor 
men from the order, but in most cases senators 

* This change was, of course, not consummated till long after 
the first century. 



126 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

possessed many times that modest sum. Many 
of them were owners of immense estates or mines 
in the provinces. In Nero's reign half the pro- 
vince of Africa belonged to six great landlords. 
On the other hand, they were forbidden to increase 
their capital by trade or commerce of any kind, 
so that it was not easy for them to recover from 
any pecuniary loss. This gave some excuse for 
the assistance given them in such cases by the 
emperor, which was sometimes supplemented by 
the generosity of their own order. The calls 
upon their purse were also very heavy. House- 
rent in the fashionable quarters of Rome was very 
high, and a considerable amount of state had to 
be kept up, including generally an army of clients 
and poor dependants, who stuck like leeches to 
their rich patron. Public life was also very 
burdensome with its shows and games and other 
expenses for the benefit of the people ; so that we 
are not surprised to find that senatorial families 
were often in difficulties. 

Before going on to the knights, the second order 
in the state, we should mention the high honours 
paid to the consuls and other great magistrates. 
Although shorn of all real power, these republican 



TEE CONSULS. 127 



dignities were as much prized as when Rome was 
a free state. Even the custom of appointing 
several consuls in one year did not materially 
lessen the estimation in which the honour was 
held. The magistrate during his year of office 
was looked up to and revered as much as if he 
were still the holder of real authority, and on his 
part he was expected to do nothing which could 
compromise the dignity of his office. We are sur- 
prised at the energy with which Juvenal declaims 
against the consul who drove his chariot himself 
^^ in the night indeed, but under the accusing eyes 
of the stars." The higher priesthoods were re- 
garded with as much ambition as the civil magis- 
tracies, with which they were often conjoined. 

The knights were less successful in preserving 
the dignity of their order than the senators. On 
account of their numbers, which were not limited 
like that of the senate, it was not difficult for 
persons to assume the insignia of a knight with- 
out proper title, and the emperors helped towards 
the degradation of the order by allowing even 
slaves on manumission to wear the gold ring.''^ 

* See an interesting collection of passages bearing on this sub- 
ject in Mayor's Juvenal, note on Satire 7. 16. 



128 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

In fact the ordo equester was becoming merged in 
the main body of citizens, though the fusion did 
not take place till after our period. Except at Rome, 
the knights were of course the highest rank, and 
the law which limited the dignity to persons pos- 
sessed of more than 400,000 sesterces seems to 
have been generally observed. Many families, 
both at Rome and in the principal to^^^ls, were 
hereditary knights, and these were accustomed to 
look down upon those who had obtained the dig- 
nity by military adventure or the gift of fortune. 
The knights still monopohsed the lucrative financial 
posts which had belonged to them under the 
Republic, and many of them exercised those com- 
mercial professions from which the senators were 
by law debarred. Hence some knights preferred 
to remain in the second order when they might 
have entered the senate, and this choice, which was 
dictated sometimes by economy, and sometimes 
by love of ease and want of ambition, was praised 
as moderation. Maecenas is the best known instance 
of a distinguished man who refused senatorial rank, 
but he appears to have had many imitators. These 
knights with senatorial census were formed into a 
distinct class, and were cdXl^di eqidtes insignes, splen- 



THE LEARNED PROFESSIONS. 129 

didi, or ilbistres. It does not appear that all knights 
with the higher census were equites illustreSj but 
only those on whom the honour was conferred 
by the emperor. They were even to be allowed to 
wear the latics clavus like senators. This tended 
still further to lower the main body of the knights, 
who possessed only the property qualification. 

We now come to the professional class in the 
Roman community. The doctors, schoolmasters, 
lecturers, and professors of the capital were gene- 
rally Greeks, who, in fact, monopolised to a great 
extent all the learned professions with the excep- 
tion of the bar. Some of these Greeks were of 
servile extraction ; others had come over to Rome 
for the sake of profit and fame. Some were even 
actually slaves, whose fees and payments belonged 
de jure to their master, though they were often 
allowed to retain part of them as peculium. This, 
to some extent, lowered the estimation of the 
learned professions, and deterred citizens of good 
family firom entering them — one of the unhappy 
consequences of slaver3\ The bar was, as we 
have said, the chief exce])tion. The profession of 
advocate was one of thg chief roads to success 
open to the aspiring young Roman. His educa- 

J 



130 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

tion had been largely directed to the art of 
rhetoric, and the fame of the orator was the most 
common object of ambition in his class. As a rule 
he did not trouble himself much with the intrica- 
cies of the law, but gave his whole attention to 
public speaking. It often happened that an advo- 
cate had no special knowledge of the legal ques- 
tion at issue, but trusted entirely to his eloquence 
to win him his case. We shall be less surprised 
at this when we remember the great latitude 
allowed to pleaders in ancient times, and the 
prominence in all the extant speeches of invective 
and declamation as compared \vith legal argument 
and evidence. It was customary, however, for 
the orator to retain the services of a pragmaticus, 
a la^vyer of lower grade in estimation, who was 
prepared to give advice on legal questions. 

The best days of Roman oratory were passed 
when Augustus made himself master of the Em- 
pire. Rome never produced a second Cicero, or 
even a second Hortensius. This falling off was 
partly due to the loss of liberty that attended the 
end of the republic, but partly, also, to the in- 
creased difficulty ^\ith which a poor and unknown 
man could make his way to the front. Juvenal* 

• Satire 7. 



THE BAR. 131 



declares indignantly that in his day even Cicero 
would not earn two pounds at the bar unless he 
wore a large and conspicuous gold ring. The man 
who wishes to succeed, he says, must be seen in 
the streets, borne in a litter by a number of young 
Medes, making purchases of plate and "murra" 
vases and beautiful slaves ; he must wear a 
brilliant robe of purple, and live in a splendid 
house with an equestrian statue of himself in the 
vestibule. Such a man may demand the highest 
price allowed by law for his pleading ; but 
eloquence is rarely found, he says, with a thread- 
bare coat. While an ^milius, with his noble 
name and his wealth, can ask 10,000 sesterces for 
a single pleading, the poor and obscure orator can 
only get one aureus for four, and even that is re- 
duced by the attorney's fees. A jockey at the 
circus could make more than a hundred pleaders. 
We can hardly be surprised if some of these ill-paid 
barristers were led to take up questionable cases 
and to endeavour to make a name by quackery. 
It does not appear that the first ever caused much 
scruple to a Roman lawyer, nor should we con- 
demn, in the circumstances, the deception of 
wearing a hired ring to give the appearance of 
I 2 



132 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

wealth, nor the custom of employing claqueurs to 
applaud the good points of a speech. If success 
as a pleader was once achieved the orator's pros- 
pects were very brilliant. Some of the most 
prominent " new men," both in our century and 
in that which preceded it, owed their elevation to 
this cause. The name of the famous advocate 
was on everyone's lips ; his house was besieged 
by friends and clients, and he might make a large 
fortune by his practice.* 

In fact the legal profession was generally looked 
upon as a lucrative one. Martial is advised by a 
friend to plead instead of writing poetry, in order 
to make his fortune.f The poet gives the same 
advice to Valerius Flaccus.J These statements are 
not at all incompatible with the lugubrious account 
of Juvenal. The successful pleaders were few, 
the "briefless barristers" were many. For these 
last it might be the best chance to follow the 
poet's advice, and leaving the ungrateful capital to 
seek an opening in Gaul or Africa, or even among 

* Some interesting facts on tMs head are given by Tacitus. 
Dial, de Orat. 

t Mart. 1. 17, " Et dicit mihi ssepe, Magna res est." See also 
2. 30, " Dives eris, si causas egeris, inqiiit." 

X Mart 1. 76. 13, "Illic" (in the Forum) "aera sonant:" &c. 



POSITION OF ADVOCATES. 133 

the Britons, who were learning eloquence from 
the ready-tongued Gauls.* The other alternative 
was to stay at home and eke out the profits of 
pleading by giving lectures. Those who were less 
successful as pleaders sometimes made a reputa- 
tion as teachers of rhetoric, and we hear of dis- 
tinguished advocates giving instruction in oratory 
after ceasing to practise. We shall probably come 
to the conclusion that except for the greater im- 
portance attached at Rome to the study of 
eloquence, the conditions of the legal profession' 
bore a close resemblance to the state of things at 
the present day. 

If we turn to the profession of teaching, we 
shall find that it ranked rather lower at Rome 
than in most civilised societies. It was the same 
at Athens. Demosthenes, when he is drawing 
contrasts to his own advantage between ^schines 
and himself, makes it his climax, *^ You were 
teaching grammar, while / was a schoolboy." 
"What an unworthy thing to do!" exclaims 
Annius Florus, " how patiently you endure sitting 
in school and teaching boys ! " The causes of this 
disparagement of the profession were probably the 

* Juv. 15. 112 ; 7. 148. 



134 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

servile associations of the pcedagogi, the small pay^ 
and the generally small acquirements of the 
schoolmasters at Rome. The social position of 
the schoolmaster began to improve at the end of 
the republic. Plotius was the first Roman teacher 
of rhetoric, in Cicero's boyhood.* Seneca men- 
tions Blandus, a Roman knight, as the teacher of 
Fabianus, adding, however, that ^' before him this 
most noble profession had been left to freedmen, 
and there was a strange idea that it was disgraceful 
to teach what it was honourable to learn." By 
the time of Juvenal it had become one of the re- 
cognised careers for a Roman of the middle class. 
With regard to the profits of the profession, it was 
a subject of complaint in 0\ad's time — 

"Nee vos turba deam censu fraadata magistri 
Spemite." 

and matters do not seem to have improved much 
for teachers in the first century, a.d. Juvenal 
says that the yearly fee (not ^' income " surely, as 
Mayor ad loc.) of a grammarian was only that 
which a jockey received for a single race. This 
was one " aureus," a sum which is ver}^ small of 

* Gellius (15. 11) quotes a most characteristic censorial edict 
against Latin " rhetors," published in 92 B.C. 



TROUBLES OF SCHOOLMASTERS. 135 

course; but which would mean a competence if the 
class was large. The picture which he draws of 
the life of a teacher is certainly unpleasant enough. 
Besides the monotony of teaching the same things 
again and again, and the anxiety of the moral 
supervision of a number of boys, it appears that 
parents often tried to evade payment of the fee on 
pretence that the boy had learned nothing. 

" Kara tamen merces quae cognitione tribimi 

Non egeat." 
" Mercedem appellas ? Quid enim scio ? " &c. 

The grammarian was also liable to be pestered by 
questions intended to test his knowledge. He 
could not walk to the baths without meeting parents 
and others who accosted him with such questions 
as " Who was Hecuba's mother ? " " What was 
the name of the nurse of Anchises ?" ^^ What was 
the tune that the Sirens used to sing ? " Ignorance 
of these important facts might lose him a pupil or 
give the parent an excuse for withholding his fee. 
He had also, it appears, to put up with insults 
from his class, who gave him nicknames, and even 
struck him.* It was the custom to begin work 
very early in the morning, even before it was light, 
so that idle citizens were disturbed in their repose 

* Juv. 7. 217. 



136 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

by the sounds of the class — the '^ verba et verbera " 
with which knowledge was driven into the head 
of the "Arcadian youth."* But these trials were 
not always without their compensations. In par- 
ticular, the teacher of rhetoric, who ranked gene- 
rally higher than the mere grammarian, sometimes 
made a good income from his profession. Good 
fortune, like that of Verrius Flaccus, who was em- 
ployed by Augustus to teach his grandchildren at 
a salary of 26,000 sesterces, was, of course, rare ; 
but we have instances of masters who made a 
much larger income. QuintiHan, for example, had 
several parksf ; Remmius Palsemon drew from his 
school no less than 400,000 sesterces a year,J and 
other instances of successful teachers might be 
quoted. § On the whole, however, the profession 
of teaching was a good deal less remunerative than 
that of the law. 

Of the literary profession, which shares with the 
law and the school the Seventh Satire of Juvenal, 
we do not intend to say much here. The restric- 

* Juv. 7. 225. 160. Mart. 9. 30. 12. 57. 9. 68. 
t Juv. 7. 189. 
X Suet. Gr. 111. 23. 

§ Teachers of arithmetic and book-keeping generally had larger 
classes than grammarians. Mart. 10. 62. 4 ; Hor. A. P. 325, &c. 



THE LITERARY PROFESSION, 137 

tions and dangers which surrounded the poet and 
historian belong to the subject of pohtics; the 
character of their productions will be more fitly- 
treated under the head of culture. Juvenal of 
course treats the matter from the pecuniary point 
of view, which is the subject of his satire. He 
complains of the want of patronage extended to 
authors by the rich and great, and contrasts the 
unhappy condition of the poet in his time with the 
honours and wealth lavished upon Virgil. There 
was probably some reason in the complaint, though 
the greatest authors have generally shewn them- 
selves indifferent about profit. Martial speaks 
quite in the same strain of the stinginess of his 
patrons. This hunting for gifts and pensions sounds 
rather sordid to us ; but we must remember that a 
writer could hardly earn a competence by the mere 
sale of his books. The relations between author 
and publisher at Rome are somewhat obscure, 
but it does not appear that the author often got 
a good bargain. In fact we do not know of any 
case in which payment for copyright is mentioned. 
Pliny was surprised to hear that copies of his 
works were being sold at Lugdunum.* Martial, on 

* Ep. 9. 11. 



138 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

the other hand, urges a stingy friend to buy, rather 
than to borrow, his Epigrams.* The price of books 
was so small that neither author nor publisher 
could have made much profit. We hear of a 
volume of Martial being offered for about four- 
pence, while a handsomely bound copy could be 
had for five denarii.f 

In most cases the author did not attempt to 
make a profit by selling copies of his works, but 
looked to his patrons and friends, and especially to 
the emperor, for remuneration. This unsatisfactory 
arrangement is responsible for much of the syco- 
phancy and adulation which disgraces Roman 
literature. In our period, even this expedient was 
seldom successful, and the author who had only 
his pen to depend upon was usually in great 
poverty. It is very noteworthy that no one was 
too proud to accept direct pecuniary assistance. 
Pliny not only sent Martial " viaticum " for his last 
journey to Spain, but gave a present of between 
three and four hundred pounds to Quintilian, who 
was not at all a poor man. In spite, however, of 
the smallness of the profit, authors were naturally 
proud of their profession, and not inclined to ex- 

♦ Mart. 1. 117. f Mart, 1. 118. 



THE ARMY, 139 



change it for the more lucrative occupations of the 
advocate or the vine grower.* 

The army sometimes opened a career for young 
men of good family. The knights in particular 
often entered a profession where their rank ensured 
them favour and promotion.f They were appointed 
to the command of a cohort, or even of a legion, 
without much merit or exertion on their part. J 
Men of the third order seldom rose higher than 
the post of centurion or military tribune. The 
army had, however, other attractions besides the 
chances of high promotion. It still enjoyed a good 
deal of social consideration, and the immense power 
which it now possessed collectively gave a good 
deal of prestige and influence to its individual 
members. The immunity enjoyed by the soldier 
for deeds of violence is a frequent subject of com- 
plaint. Soldiers frequently insulted, assaulted, and 
robbed peaceable citizens with impunity. " It is 
easier," says a contemporary writer, " to get a false 
verdict against a civilian than a true one against a 
soldier." The officers, too, might obtain lucrative 
posts. Besides the most dignified, and probably 

* Mart. 1. 17. f J^^- 1- ^^' " ^^^ ^^^ curam sperare cohortis." 
J Cf, Hor., " Quod mihi pareret legio Komana tribune." This, 

however, was more characteristic of the civil wars than of the 

Empire. 



140 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

richest offices, such as Prefect of public safety, 
Superintendent of the com distribution, Governor 
of Egypt, and Prefect of the Praetorian camp, 
there were minor financial posts which it was 
now customary to give to officers. These prizes 
of the profession were, of course, almost mono- 
polised by the knights. 

Farming was rather an occupation than a pro- 
fession for the better class. In spite of the old 
honourable traditions of the citizen-farmer, agri- 
culture did not hold out sufficient inducements 
either socially or pecuniarily to tempt many to 
give up the amusements and society of the capital. 
It is true that Martial, in one place, says " Res 
magna est Tite, quam facit colonus," but elsewhere 
he laughs at farmers who have to buy even their 
garden produce at Rome."* 

The profession of medicine, though often very 
lucrative, did not rank so high socially as in 
modern times. Its practice was almost confined 

* We do not forget the maxim of Cato, that the most lucrative 
profession is " bene pascere ; " the next, " to be a tolerable gra- 
zier ; " and the third, "to be a mediocre grazier:" but in our 
period sheep-farms were managed without the personal superin- 
tendence of their owner, and thus could not be said to make 
him a profession. Gate's remark is also directed against corn- 
farming. 



MEDICINE. 141 



to foreigners,"'^ and was to a large extent in the 
hands of freedmen, and even of slaves. The 
oriental provinces of the empire supplied the 
greatest number of physicians and surgeons. 
Most of the celebrated practitioners whose names 
have come down to us have Greek names ; 
but we hear Egyptians and Syrians spoken of as 
skilful doctors, and not a few, such as Antonius 
Musa under Augustus, and Vettius Valens under 
Claudius, were either freedmen with Italian names 
or actually Romans of pure blood. The old 
practice had been for wealthy families to keep 
slaves skilled in the medical art, who prescribed 
for themselves and their households, and brought 
additional profit to their owners by practising for 
pay in other houses. In the time of the empire, 
though many able physicians and surgeons 
belonged to this class, the majority had a more 
independent position. We hear frequently of 
"family doctors," who were paid a fixed sum 
annually for their attendance and advice, and of 
distinguished physicians who combined teaching 
with their practice, and paid their visits attended 

* Cf. Plin. N. H. 29. 11, "Solam banc Graecaxum artiurn non- 
dum exercet Komana gravitas." 



142 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

by a troop of students. These successful doctors 
often made large fortunes, larger probably than 
even a brilliant advocate. The elder Pliny* men- 
tions by name five who in his day made 250,000 
sesterces (about ^^2,000) a year. He also tells 
us that ]■ Stertinius made a favour of accepting the 
post of court physician to Claudius at a salary of 
500,000 sesterces, since he might have made 
600,000 by private practice. This distinguished 
practitioner and his brother left behind them 
conjointly the sum of 30 milhons of sesterces, 
though they had made large donations in 
their lifetime to the city of Naples. A little 
further on he tells us of another, Crinas of Mar- 
seilles, who after an open-handed life left ten 
millions, while a less fortunate surgeon was 
mulcted in that sum by the Emperor Claudius. 
A few instances of exorbitant fees have come 
do^^^\ to us. Pliny mentions 200,000 sesterces 
being paid by an ex-preetor afflicted with leprosy ; 
but he does not say how long the treatment was 
continued. There is no direct evidence as to the 
ordinary amount of a doctor's fee. It does not 
appear that any precautions were taken by law to 

* Flin. H. N. 29. 5. f ^^' 8, 9. 



FORTUNES MADE BY PHYSICIANS. 143 

prevent incompetent and disreputable persons 
from offering their services as physicians or 
surgeons. The profession was often entered 
without any further quahfication than an agree- 
able manner and a supply of effrontery. Men 
left other professions to take up medicine without 
any special preparation for the science, and suc- 
ceeded or failed according to the popular verdict 
on their powers. It is not to be wondered at, 
that in these circumstances a great deal of 
quackery and not a little crime was found in 
the ranks of the profession. Doctors were fre- 
quently accused of gross incompetence, of im- 
proper familiarity with their female patients, and 
even of poisoning for their o^vn sakes or for 
money. The famous Hippocratic oath, which so 
nobly sets forth the duty of a high-minded votary 
of iEsculapius, was hardly in accordance with 
the practice of the majority of Roman doctors. 
Pliny complains that surgeons try experiments on 
their patients, and that a doctor is the only man 
who may kill people with impunity. 

It may be doubted whether medical science 
advanced much in this period. Ancient surgeons 
seem always to have been prone to the use of 



144 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

the knife and cauter}\ Archa.^athus, one of the 
first Greek physicians who came to Rome, was 
especially notorious for his cruelty. Some of the 
prescriptions which have come do^^Tl to us sound 
as absurd as those of the middle ages. Modern 
physicians would probably shake their heads at 
the cold water cure of Antonius Musa, which is 
said to have saved Augustus' life, and probably 
destroyed that of Marcellus : a mixture of salt 
and \dnegar is ordered for quinsy, and gout is 
treated ^ith an apphcation of goat's feet to the 
chest, and a diet of frogs cooked in oil. Specialism, 
however, was carried to a great extent. We hear 
of doctors for both sexes, of dentists, oculists, 
ear-doctors, &c. Various schools of medicine are 
also mentioned, among which we may mention the 
^^Wine-givers," who were doubtless popular. A 
copious draught of \\dne, followed by a bath, was 
a favourite prescription of this school. 

The law, the army, education, literature, more 
rarely farming and medicine, were the chief 
occupations which Roman society regarded as 
worthy of a gentleman. Descending a step lower 
in the social scale, we come to trades of various 
kinds, one of the most lucrative of which was 



VARIOUS TRADES. 145 

that of the prceco or crier and auctioneer, a fact 
which seems to indicate that property changed 
hands very rapidly at Rome. Another prominent 
trade was that of the fullers, who whitened and 
mended dirty and torn togas. The purple trade 
is also characteristic. The barbers shops were 
much frequented for the sake of gossip ; and 
barbers often made large fortunes. Juvenal 
speaks of a tonsor owning an innumerable number 
of villas, and Martial of another whom his mis- 
tress had raised to the rank of eques by a large 
present of money. Architects, sculptors, and 
painters generally belonged to the tradesman 
class. So did the important maritime merchants, 
who carried on the foreign trade of Italy, and 
conveyed luxuries to Rome from every quarter of 
the known world. 

Trades-guilds, not unlike those of the middle 
ages, existed at Rome from the very earliest 
period, their origin being ascribed to Numa. 
They were nine in number originally, but others 
were added later. They each had a meeting- 
house of their own, and rules of their society, 
and religious ceremonies which were performed 
at public gatherings of the guild. 

K 



146 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Another important trade was that of the 
cimponeSy or inn-keepers, who seem to have been 
generally Orientals, often Syrians. The keeper of 
?ipopina was despised, and his trade regarded as 
disreputable, not only on account of the dishonesty 
of which he was accused, but because the inns and 
eating-houses were often used for debauchery and 
vicious purposes. Drunkenness seems to have 
been common at some of these low haunts, 
which were frequented not merely by slaves and 
vagabonds, but by dissipated members of the 
upper classes. 

The last trade we shall mention here is that of 
bookselling. This was a very flourishing business, 
as large libraries were frequent at Rome, both pub- 
lic ones — of which there were at last no less than 
twenty-eight — and private collections, several of 
which contained upwards of twenty or thirty 
thousand volumes. The multiplication of copies 
was effected entirely by slaves, who copied so fast 
and cheaply that the cost of books was even less 
than at the present day.* 

* Sir G. Lewis (Credibility of Eoman History, 1. 197) says, " It 
may be doubted whether there were ever a hundred copies of 
Virgil or Horace in existence at any time before the invention of 
printing." I believe this statement to be entirely erroneous. 



RECIPIENTS OF CHARITY. 147 

The unfortunate contempt for trade, which had 
been bred at Rome by warhke habits, had survived 
the state of things which produced it. The Roman 
citizen was still debarred by an unreasonable pride 
from those humble pursuits which in healthy com- 
munities give occupation to and provide a main- 
tenance for the majority of the population. There 
was in consequence a large number of persons 
who had no regular means of livelihood, and who 
were obliged to depend on others for their support. 
The poorest class, very numerous in the capital, 
was provided with a daily dole of bread by the 
state. That above them, comprising a large part 
of the third order or middle class, was to a great 
extent dependent on that peculiar Roman institu- 
tion, the clientela. Like almost everything else, 
it was not an invention of the empire, but a 
modification of an old custom. Under the re- 
public the clients rendered real services to their 
patrons, and the relations between them were not 
unlike those between lord and vassal in the 
healthier ^ time of feudalism. In such relations 
there was no loss of dignity on either side. The 

Among other evidence for tlie abundance of books, we may notice 
that xingustus confiscated 2,000 copies of the pseudo- Sibylline 
books in Kome alone. 

K 2 



143 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

patron gave his client his powerful protection and 
assistance in case of need, and the chent repaid 
the obligation by faithful and honourable service 
to the patron. Under the empire this institution 
had ceased to have any real value. The patron 
no longer needed the adherence of his client 
except for purposes of ostentation, and the client 
stood in small need of protection from his patron, 
except in the form of pecuniar}- assistance. Hence 
the relations between patron and client became 
degraded on both sides. On the one side pride 
and insolence, on the other senility and avarice, 
became the characteristics of the two parties. 
The duties of the client were, in the first place, to 
call upon his patron earh' in the morning, a 
sufficiently troublesome obligation considering the 
unpleasant and even dangerous condition of the 
streets, and the necessity of wearing the imcom- 
fortable toga. Then he had to hold himself con- 
stantly in readiness to accompany his patron on a 
walk or jomney, and to perform any little services 
that he might require. Lastly, he had to observe 
a strict and even humiliating deference, never 
omitting to address his patron by the word 
*^ Domine," a-nd pacing him eveiy kind of flatter}^ 



TEE " SPORTULAr 149 

and attention. As a recompense for these irksome 
duties, the dient received a small payment in 
money, called sportula^ the origin of which is a 
matter of dispute, but it was probably at first an 
allowance of food instead of a meal at the patron's 
house. The client might also expect occasional 
invitations to dine with his patron — a doubtful 
boon, since it was not uncommon for the host to 
remind his guest of his inferior position by 
humiliating treatment, providing him with inferior 
food and wine, and allowing his domestics to 
neglect and insult him. This behaviour was 
doubtless confined to the vulgar nouveaux riches, 
but we can hardly be surprised at small con- 
sideration being shewn to a class of men who 
willingly placed themselves in so servile a position. 
It appears that towards the end of the century 
patrons had begun to feel the remuneration of 
their clients a burden, and to stint their sportula. 
Domitian even abolished the money payment for 
a time, and complaints are made that the good days 
for clients are over. The increased number of 
these dependants doubtless made the maintenance 
of the system difficult. The sportula was now 
demanded not only by poor and humble hangers- 



150 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

on of the great houses, but by persons of good 
position, so that Juvenal can even represent a 
consul adding up at the end of the year the 
income derived from his patron's presents. The 
satirist speaks with great truth and force of the 
demoralising effect of this universal parasitism. 
A man who is not ashamed to submit to the 
indignities which a client has to bear, does not 
deserve, he says, to be believed on oath in a court 
of justice. His patron is right to insult him: if a 
man ^\dll put up with anything he ought to be 
made to do so ; it is only a step further for the 
parasite to submit to a flogging like a slave. 
Better far to beg for bread on the mendicant's 
station than to be dependent on the liberality of 
some wealthy parv^enu. Such, however, was not 
the opinion of YQry many people at Rome who 
thought it the highest boon of fortune to live at 
another's expense, and though ashamed to work, 
did not blush to live on charity. 

The class below the majority of the clients was 
partly supported by humble occupations, partly 
dependent on the state-distribution of com. This 
pernicious institution did more than anything else 
to undermine the health of the Roman community. 



BEGGARS 151 



So far as we can leani; a very large number of 
persons resided in the capital simply in order to 
eat the bread of idleness, practising no trade, and 
addicted to all the vices which want of work never 
fails to encourage. These were the mob who 
frequented the public games and public baths, 
spending their whole day in a round of demo- 
ralising amusement, and preying upon the treasury, 
which in its turn could only supply the demand by 
exactions from the impoverished provinces. 

We have now reached the lowest rung of the 
ladder, the class of beggars by profession. These 
were very numerous, a fact which perhaps testifies, 
as Mr. Lecky believes, to the generosity of the city 
in reheving distress. It appears, however, that in 
spite of the corn-distribution, a good deal of abject 
poverty existed at Rome, so that the beggars may 
have adopted their trade from necessity and not 
from choice. Some failed to secure their share of 
the dole, and food and everything else was dear at 
Rome. We are not surprised to hear of numbers 
of mendicants waiting about the bridges, the Servian 
Agger, and other places of public resort, making 
themselves regular stations there, sleeping on mats 
in the place where, in the day-time, they asked 



152 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

for alms. Martial ad^^ses a destitute man to be- 
come a beggar rather than stan-e in honest indi- 
gence; so, perhaps, some Roman mendicants ob- 
tained something more than bare subsistence. 

Besides the broad di\-ision of the community 
into three orders, and the subdi\isions of the third 
order according to the nature of their professions 
or trades, social inequalities ^'ere largely fostered 
by prejudices about race. Not only was the citizen 
preferred to the non-citizen, the Italian to the 
foreigner, but even the natives of other towms in 
Italy were judged inferior to those who came of 
Roman parentage. Augustus was reproached by 
Marcus Antonius because his mother was a native 
of Aricia. Livia Augusta was considered not to 
be of imblemished descent, because her mater- 
nal grandfather was a town councillor of Fundi. 
Li\'ia the younger, the wife of Drusus, son of 
Tiberius, was seduced by Sejanus, upon which 
Tacitus remarks, '^ So this woman, who was the 
daughter-in-law of Tiberius and the niece of 
Augustus, disgraced herself, her ancestors, and her 
posterity by adultery^ with a municipal!' Fried- 
lander justly quotes this as one of the strongest 
expressions of narrow Roman prejudice. And if 



RACE-PREJUDICE. 153 

even the to^^Tis of Italy were despised by the 
haughty natives of the capital, how much greater 
was their scorn of provincials and foreigners ! We 
have already mentioned the disgust caused by the 
Gaulish senators introduced by Julius Caesar. 
Cicero declares that the most distinguished Gaul 
is not to be compared with the meanest Roman 
citizen. Even the pohshed Greek was regarded 
with hardly less disdain, a feeling in his case often 
mingled with hatred at the superior adroitness 
which enabled him to outstrip the slower or more 
honest Roman. Umbricius* leaves Rome in disgust 
and betakes himself to quiet Cumae, because he 
cannot bear to see Greeks put before him. " Shall 
that man/' he asks, ^' take precedence of me, who 
came to Rome vdXh a cargo of plums and figs ? 
Is it of no account that my infancy drew the breath 
of the Aventine, and was nurtured on the Sabine 
olive-berry ? " How strange is the state of feeling 
displayed by the invectives of the Augustan poets 
against Antonius and Cleopatra ! ^^ Nefas, ^gyptia 
conjux," ^' Dedecus ^g}^pti," " Fatale monstrum," 
" mulier ansa Jovi nostro latrantem opponere 
Anubim." Such are a few of the expressions ap- 

* Juv. Sat. 3. 



154 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

plied to the Greek Queen of Eg}^pt, the descendant 
of a long and glorious line. One might fancy- 
Cleopatra was a savage Ethiopian woman^ who 
had fascinated the representative of a princely- 
house. The fall of the Julian d}Tiasty- did some- 
thing to modify this intense national pride. First 
Italians, then pro\incialS; gained the imperial purple: 
the sovereignty of the Roman stock was already 
at an end, and the counterfeit which still survived 
was less powerful and less exclusive. The empire 
was gradually fusing all the different nationalities, 
and breaking do\Mi the social distinctions which 
the pride of a conquering race had so carefully 
erected. The process was, however, ver}^ gradual, 
for the " new men " were almost as tenacious of 
their privileges and superiority as the old families, 
and even the brilliant development of genius in 
Spain during our period, and the splendour, rival- 
ling Rome, of Antioch and Alexandria, failed to 
compel the capital to recognise the provinces as 
her equals. 

There was, however, one exception to this rigid 
exclusiveness, and that in a quarter where it might 
have been least expected. The nobility of Rome 
refiised to treat the distinguished Spaniard or 



PROVINCIALS AND FREEDMEN. 155 

Greek on a footing of equality, but they were often 
ready to court the wealthy freedman. Nothing in 
Roman history is more remarkable than the ease 
with which a manumitted slave passed into the 
privileged order, and obtained for his children and 
grandchildren, if not for himself, the same rights as 
genuine Romans, compared with the difficulties 
and restrictions thrown in the way of the free pro- 
vincial who desired the same advantages. It may 
even be stated that a slave in a wealthy house at 
Rome had a better career open for his ambition 
than the ablest citizen of Antioch or Gades. Even 
in the matter of 'marriage, where aristocratic 
exclusiveness is generally strongest, the same 
curious phenomenon is displayed. The union of 
Antonius with the daughter of the Ptolemies was 
deemed a hideous disgrace : but Augustus found it 
necessary to make a law forbidding ladies of sena- 
torial family to contract marriages with freedmen, 
and his successors at least often granted exemp- 
tions from it on the supplication of friends. The 
wife of Claudius Etruscus, a native of Smyrna, and 
slave of Tiberius, whose fortune it had been 

" Semper Csesareum coluisse latus," 

was the sister of a consul.* Antonius Felix, who, 

* Stat. Silv. 3. 3. 



156 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

in the words of Tacitus, '' exercised the power of a 
king in the spirit of a slave," married Drusilla, the 
granddaughter of Antonius the triumvir. Such 
instances seem to have been common. In society 
such freedmen were not excluded from good 
circles, though their arrogance and bad manners 
often made them objects of hatred and disgust. 
The enormous wealth which they often possessed, of 
which we gave instances earlier in the chapter, 
was a sure passport to social success at Rome, 
where ^^ everything had its price." A Zoilus, if 
he happened to be childless, was certain of plenty 
of deference and attention, even from the best 
families. His \^ces and vulgarities were more than 
compensated by his palaces and villas. 

The vast majority of freedmen were, however, 
in a much more humble station. We find them in 
fact in every rank of life ; in the learned professions, 
in trade, in commerce, in domestic offices, and in 
the lowest grades of poverty. From their numbers 
and position they gradually gave their type to the 
Roman community, which assumed more and more 
that de-nationalized and cosmopolitan character 
which ended in final disintegration. 

We have yet to speak more in particular of some 



TEE JEWS AND THEIR INFLUENCE. 157 

of the foreign elements which had entered into 
Roman society, and we shall begin with the Jews, 
whO; from their numbers and marked individuahty, 
were a prominent feature in Roman society. So 
large was the number of Jews and Syrians in Rome 
that Juvenal complains that the Orontes has flowed 
into the Tiber. Josephus mentions 8,000 Jews 
established in the capital in his tine. Seneca, in a 
fragment quoted by Augustine, declares that '^ the 
customs of that cursed race have prevailed so far 
that they are accepted over the whole world : the 
vanquished have given laws to their conquerors." 
Tiberius expelled 4,000 persons from Rome, and 
banished them to Sardinia, as infected with Jewish 
and Egyptian superstitions. Despised and hated 
as they were, they made many proselytes. From 
the establishment of the empire they began to 
push themselves into every class of society, and to 
exercise a powerful influence in the state. Caius 
probably learned his ideas of absolute monarchy 
from Herod : Titus was captivated by Berenice ; 
and the number of converts to the Jewish faith 
cannot be counted. The Sabbath was a joke in 
Horace's time : in Juvenal's it was to many a 
reality. Outbreaks of persecution were sometimes 



158 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

sanctioned by the emperor : e.g. Tiberius expelled 
4,000, as above-mentioned, and Domitian attacked 
the Jewish religion with a ferocity as great as that 
afterwards directed against the Christians. It is 
possible, as Merivale thinks, that the insurrection 
under Vespasian, and the destruction of Jerusalem 
by Titus, gave a death-blow to Jewish influence at 
Rome, but if so, it was not long before the progress 
of Christianity again made Jewish ideas an impor- 
tant factor in society. 

Of other Oriental nations we may mention the 
Egyptians, who were celebrated for their skill in 
surgery, as well as for their licentious character, 
and the Syrians, who were much devoted to the 
study of astrology and kindred sciences. As for 
the Greeks, they per^^aded the whole city and 
every class of society, so that Rome, in the words 
of the satirist, had become " a Greek city." The 
versatile Greek could turn his hand to every trade, 
from rhetoric to fortune-telling, and seldom 
allowed scruples to stand in the way of profit. 
It is not necessary here to enter further into 
the wide subject of Greek influence at Rome. 
The northern and western nations were very 
slightly represented among the free population, 



THE SLA VE FOP ULA TION. 169 

and their presence does not call for any special 
remark. 

It still remains to speak of slavery, that most 
important of Roman institutions, and of the mass 
of human beings, probably exceeding in numbers 
all the rest of the population, whose legal position 
was simply that of chattels of the Roman people. 
In the chapter on morality we have already dealt 
with some aspects of the question, tracing the 
improvement in the condition of the slave which 
took place in our period, and the movement of 
public opinion with regard to humanity towards 
slaves. Here we must consider the slaves as one 
class in the community, and endeavour to present 
a complete though only outlined sketch of their 
life in that capacity. 

Slaves were divided into two Qh.ssQSyihe familia 
urbana and the familia rustica. The former 
consisted of domestic slaves, who performed all 
the duties of the household, the latter of the 
field-labourers on their master's country estates. 
Let us take first the domestic slaves, who were 
generally better treated and in a better position 
than the country slaves. The simple old custom 
by which a few slaves only were attached to the 



160 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME, 

house, and ate at the same table with their master, 
had given place to immense crowds of domestic 
slaves, and a corresponding sub-division of labour. 
Wealthy Romans seem actually to have exercised 
their ingenuity in finding work for the largest 
possible number of slaves. It would be tedious to 
enumerate even a quarter of the offices which are 
mentioned in various Latin writers ; among the 
most curious are the folder of clothes (vestiplicus)y 
the custodian of the Corinthian vases (a Corinthiis)^ 
and the sandal-boy (calceator), whose duty it was 
to put on his master's shoes. The management of 
this un^vieldy and, perhaps, idle household, was 
committed to a head-slave, who held the post of 
atriensis. He was responsible for the good 
behaviour and industry of his subordinates, and 
allotted them their tasks. A large number were 
generally employed about the atrium, a large 
number in the kitchen, and a third detachment 
had its duties out of doors, to run errands, or 
attend their master abroad. Among these last we 
may notice as characteristic of Roman society the 
nomenclator, whose business it was to warn his 
master of the approach of any acquaintance and 
whisper to him the name, which he might other- 



MULTIPLICATION OF SLAVES. 161 

wise have forgotten. Litter-carriers and simple 
attendants (pedisequi) were also in this class. In 
the house were the educated slaves, secretaries, 
librarians, readers, &c., and also the pages who 
waited at dinner, the dwarf, and the performers of 
various menial offices. We can find no parallel to 
the extraordinary multiplication of domestic slaves 
in the house of the rich Roman, unless it be in the 
effeminate luxury of an Oriental court. Parve- 
nues were of course the worst offenders, men of 
the type of Zoilus, whose habits Martial describes 
in disgusting detail. *" A gentleman and a man of 
self-respect would doubtless dispense with many 
of these ministers of self-indulgence and idleness. 
The /amilia rustica consisted of all the "hands" 
necessary to work the land and farm, ploughmen, 
keepers of horses oxen sheep mules pigs and 
asses, diggers, sowers, reapers, vine-dressers, 
gardeners, bee-keepers, gamekeepers, &c., &c., 
the whole number being usually under the super- 
intendence of a villicus or bailiff, who appointed 
them their tasks, and distributed their rations. 
This class of slaves generally had a harder lot than 
the domestic slaves. They often worked in 

* Mart. 3. 82. 
L 



162 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

chains, to prevent them from escaping, and at 
night they were frequently huddled together in an 
ergastiihwi, or barrack, half underground, which 
must have caused great misery. It seems, from 
Pliny and other ^vriters, that in his time a more 
merciful system was coming in. 

How then was this immense demand for human 
beings supplied ? In the first place, by the natural 
birth of children in the slave-class. The maxim of 
the modem slave-dealer that it is cheaper to buy 
than to breed, was not part of the Roman system 
of economy. All writers on the subject recom- 
mend that slaves should be encouraged to have 
children, though they speak as if some owners 
acted on a different principle. Columella even 
recommends a "jus trium liberorum" to be granted 
to "ancillse," three sons conferring a claim to 
"vacatio" or immunity from hand-labour, and a 
greater number being rewarded by manumission.* 
In general the "vemae, ditis examen domus" were 
undoubtedly regarded as a source of revenue. 
They were not, however, the best servants, as they 
were often forward and impertinent, and cunning 
in evading their work. We have no means of 

* Col. 1. 8. 19. 



SLAVE-DEALING, 163 

judging what proportion the vernce bore to the 
whole body of slaves, but in all probability the 
birth-rate in the slave-class was low, and in- 
fant mortality very prevalent. Another source of 
supply was opened by successful wars. It is pro- 
bable that at one period of Roman history this 
was the most fruitful recruiting ground of the slave 
population. Whole nations were sold after a 
victory, sub hasta or suh corona, according to 
Roman phrase, this being the recognised treatment 
of prisoners taken in war. But the empire was 
less fertile in conquest, and other means had to be 
resorted to. It appears that kidnapping was 
carried on to a frightful extent. We even hear of 
eastern provinces complaining that they can no 
longer furnish their contingent of troops, the 
population having been drained off by the slave- 
dealers. A fearful picture is here opened before 
us, and we regret that so little information is to be 
obtained as to the extent of this iniquity and the 
means by which it was carried on. We gather 
that in out-of-the-way places, where the hand of 
the law could not make itself felt, men were stolen 
and carried off and sold as slaves, or shut up in 
ergastula without a shadow of right. We are 

L 2 



1G4 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

astonished to find that this was the case even in 
Itah', where Seneca declares that ergastula 
ingenuorum existed, in which travellers and other 
defenceless persons were immured. In Cicero's 
speech pro Cluentio, a work in which nearly all 
the blackest features of Roman life are collected, 
we have an instance of a free man being kidnapped 
and sold into slaver}^ through the treachen,' of his 
relations, who wished to get him out of the way. 
This crime was probably not uncommon in an 
age which invented the science of legacy-hunting ; 
and even without collusion on the part of the 
relations it must have been extremely difficult for 
the victim to escape or make the place of his 
detention kno^Ti to his friends. And if even 
Italians were subject to this fate, what must have 
been the case with the unhappy provincials, for 
whom no one cared, when the greedy and unscru- 
pulous mangones were ever on the watch to seize 
some handsome boy or maiden for the Roman 
market ? If force was not possible, what could be 
easier than to make a bargain \\*ith the tax-col- 
lector to distrain upon a poor family, and in 
default of pavmient hand them over to the dealers ? 
When we hear of the vast slave-marts at Delos 



KIDNAPPING. 165 



and other places, we cannot account for the num- 
bers daily sold there, except on the supposition 
that immense numbers of free persons were ille- 
gally kidnapped and enslaved throughout the 
Empire. The existence of the Lex Fabia de 
plagiariis testifies to the prevalence of the crime ; 
but it is to be feared that where the pecuniary 
interests of the wealthy mango and the powerful 
purchaser were set against the claims of one who 
was at least de facto a slave, the chances of 
redress must have been slight indeed. The slaves 
who passed through the hands of the dealers were 
not all kidnapped. We hear of parents selling 
their children into slavery, and of poor persons 
voluntarily selling themselves. From what we 
said above on the subject of freedmen it may be 
imagined that in some cases an oppressed pro- 
vincial might gain by entering the service of a 
Roman noble. Legal degradation to slavery was 
ordained in certain cases, the commonest probably 
being that of provincials who could not meet the 
demands of the tax-collector. Great cruelty and 
injustice probably resulted from this harsh usage. 

The traffic in slaves was of course an important 
feature in Roman commerce. When a slave was 



166 SOCIAL LIFE IX nOME. 

to be sold, he was usually exposed on a platform 
(catasta), \Y\t\i chalked feet,* and a label round 
his neck setting forth his character, &c., and any 
faults he might have. If the vendor could give no 
warrant for him, a cap was placed on his head. 
The purchaser might bring an action for conceal- 
ment of personal or moral defects. Sometimes, 
however, valuable slaves were sold privately, or in 
the back-rooms of shops, to avoid the curiosity of 
the Mjlgar, who could not purchase them. The 
prices of slaves of course varied widely. As luxury 
increased, the relative value of different sorts of 
slaves altered. A cook, who had formerly been 
the cheapest, was now (in our period) one of the 
dearest, of slaves. Ordinary field labourers were 
cheap — from £^ to ;£"io seems to have been an 
ordinary price for such. Skilled labour, of course, 
commanded a higher price, and servi literati some- 
times fetched 100,000 sesterces, or even more. 
Instruments of vice and luxury were bought at 
extraordinary prices. We hear of 100,000, and 
even 200,000 sesterces being given for a puer 
delicatusy and 100,000 for a girl. Eunuchs fetched 

* This was a sign that the slave had been brought from beyond 

seas. 



PRICES OF SLAVES, 167 

immense sumS; up to 500,000, and dwarfs, buffoons, 
and abortions of nature or art were much sought 
after. A trusted steward, atriensis, or villkus, 
would also command a high price. Of the nation- 
alities, Greeks were naturally the most expensive, 
Sardinians and (probably) Syrians among the 
cheapest. 

Great attention was given to the education of 
slaves for the place they were to occupy in the 
household. Those who were to exercise any 
handicraft were put to a careful apprenticeship ; 
those who were to amuse their master by jests and 
saucy repartees were given lessons in this art ; 
sometimes little vernce,iust emerging from infancy, 
were petted like dogs or kittens, wearing no clothes 
except coloured ribbons and gold and silver orna- 
ments ; those who promised to be idiots were 
trained to improve their faculty for the amusement 
of their master, while those who shewed literary 
taste were trained as readers or secretaries ; classes 
generally consisting of ten were formed to facilitate 
the teaching of a large number, and houses called 
pczdagogia were kept for those who were to serve 
as pages and cupbearers. 

The treatment of slaves of course varied with 



168 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

the character of the master. There are several 
indications that their position was not altogether 
so intolerable as some modern writers would have 
us believe. The good old custom by which the 
familia dined at the same table with their master 
had, it is true, ceased, as much from necessity as 
from growing pride ; for the numbers were now 
far too great for it to be maintained. We hear, how- 
ever, that good masters always invited their slaves 
to their triclinium during the Saturnalia, and on 
feast days, and the system of rations had this 
advantage for the slave, that he was able by self- 
denial to save out of the allowance made to him, 
and thus accumulate a sum with which he could 
eventually hope to buy his freedom. The fact 
that this was possible shews that the slaves were 
not seriously stinted in the matter of food. The 
peculium was indeed now universally recognised, 
even in t\iQ familia rustica, and it was considered 
a mark of recklessness and folly in a slave not to 
have saved anything. Another pleasing feature 
is the care taken not to divide families.* In 
this respect Roman slavery compares favourably 

* This subject has been spoken of already under the head of 
" Morality." The repetition seemed unavoidablQ 



TREATMENT OF SLAVES. 169 

with that of America in the present century, 
according to the best known accounts. The Digest 
rules that a legacy of a slave is to be taken to in- 
clude his wife and children, " for it is not to be 
believed that he (the testator) meant to enjoin 
a cruel separation." Perhaps, however, we have no 
right to quote the Digest as evidence for the first 
century ; and it may be reasonably doubted whether 
the obligation was recognised under the Twelve 
Caesars. Some care seems, however, to have been 
taken about the marriage of slaves, if the term 
may be used where the law only recognized 
contubernimn, Varro recommends that the slave 
and his wife shall be chosen to suit each other, 
though only apparently to make them work more 
contentedly. 

The punishments of slaves will be dealt with in 
another place,* where we shall try to shew that 
a real though tardy improvement in humanity is 
perceptible through the period. We wish we could 
say the same of another subject, the most painful 
part of servile degradation. When Seneca says 
" Impudicitia in ingenuo crimen, in servo neces- 

* We have, however, omitted the details of punishment and 
torture, which are not pleasant reading. Evidence is collected by 
Wallon, Becker, Marquardt, and others. 



170 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME, 

sitaS; in liberto officium/' we recognize how deep 
was the infamy to which slaves were often 
compelled to submit.* It is true that a magis- 
trate already existed in Seneca's time whose duty 
it was to protect slaves from '^ saevitia et libido, " 
but we fear the wrongs of the victims seldom 
reached his ears. 

The most envied members of the servile class 
were naturally the official slaves of Caesar's house- 
hold, and those who held similar positions in 
the public offices. A dispensator of -this class was 
quite a great man. An epitaph of a slave who 
held the office oi dispensator of the imperial trea- 
sury in Gallia Lugdunensis, under Tiberius, has been 
found on the Appian-road. It mentions sixteen 
vicarii or slaves of his own who formed his escort 
at the time of his death. These gradations in rank 
were doubtless a great security to the masters, who 
could trust their upper slaves to keep the rest in 
order. 

The feeling with which slaves were regarded was 
still very unsatisfactory. Stoic philosophers and 
men of refinement and humanity did their best to 

* Lecky and Merivale both take too favourable a view of Roman 
morality on this head, but it is not necessary to say more about it 
here. 



FEELING ABOUT SLAVES. 171 

inculcate the natural equality of man ; but a more 
faithful indication of the popular opinion is given 
by such cool classifications as that of Varro in the 
preceding generation. "Agricultural implements 
are divided into three classes — ^vocal, as slaves, 
semi-vocal, as oxen, and dumb, as carts." The 
" custom of our ancestors," always a potent force 
at Rome, favoured this conception of the slave- 
class, and it took some time for the more liberal 
theory of the Stoa to win acceptance in the house- 
hold and in the statute-book. 



( 172 ) 



CHAPTER VIL 



EDIJCATION, MAEEIAGE, &C. 

In our last chapter we gave a short sketch of 
the component parts of Roman society. We shall 
now go through the life of the individual in the 
same way, considering in their order the chief 
points connected with childhood, education, mar- 
riage, and death. In this case also we shall have 
to be content with a brief summary of a very wide 
subject. 

From the moment when he first saw the light, 
the Roman child was absolutely under the power 
of his father. As the family, with its sacred rites 
and continuous existence, was the unit of society, 
so tliQ pater familias was the despotic head of the 
group he represented. As he had called his child 
into being, so it rested with him whether that 
being should be continued or not. A sickly or 
deformed child was generally drowned at once/ 

* Sen. de Ira. 1. 15. 2. 



''P ATRIA POTESTASr 173 

and no obligation was felt to rear even a healthy- 
infant. If the question was decided in its favour, 
the child was given one of the few prccnomina in 
use at Rome ; the sacred ceremony of lustration ad- 
mitted him into the family circle ; the golden 
token, the sign of free-birth, was hung round his 
neck ; his birth was entered in the acta diurna, 
and formal notice of the same given to the Prefect 
of the Treasury. Still the father by no means lost 
his authority over the person of the child. He 
might punish him to any extent he liked, sell him 
as a slave, or put him to death. The Romans of 
our period recognised the anomaly of the patria 
potestas, and noticed that it was peculiar to their 
own code ; but they were very slow to modify it. 
The customs of their ancestors were the foun- 
dation of their greatness : '^ Moribus antiquis stat 
res Romana virisque," as old Ennius said, and it is 
not till Hadrian's time that we find a man banished 
for putting his son to death. 

Education was begun at an early age. A boy- 
was first sent to a litterator — generally a slave or 
freedman, who gave him a general instruction in 
the elements of reading, writing, arithmetic, and 
Greek. The next stage was the school of the 



174 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

'' grammarian," where the boy began to read 
standard authors in both languages, such as (in 
our period) Homer, Terence, Virgil, and Horace. 
Passages from these works were read aloud with 
the appropriate emphasis and intonation, and then 
learnt by heart. Questions were set on criticism, 
geography, mythology, and other subjects. Special 
attention was given to preparing the mind of the 
pupil for the next stage of his education, the 
lecture-room of the rhetorician. Suetonius tells 
us that at one time the grammarian used to teach 
rhetoric himself, but in our period he generally 
left that subject to professed rhetors , who received 
the boy after he had completed his school course. 
The discipline of the grammarians was severe, 
corporal punishment being freely applied to the 
idle and unruly. Holidays were long and frequent. 
Besides four months' vacation in the year, every 
feast-day and every market-day seems to have 
been a holiday, a system which approaches closely 
that of some of our public schools. 

The physical side of education was not neglected. 
Games, as ball and other athletic exercises, were 
encouraged, the most approved being the old 
fashioned martial practice in the Campus. The 



EARLY EDUCATION. 175 

Greek palcEstra had long since taken root in Rome, 
but it remained under the disapproval of those who 
preserved the old Roman feeling. The unpractical 
nature of the Greek training, the object of which was 
to develope beauty rather than to turn out good 
soldiers, was contrary to Roman theory; and the 
moral dangers to which the young were exposed 
in the palcBstra gave a still stronger reason for the 
prejudice. Music and dancing were also distrusted 
by men of the old school, as derogatory to Roman 
gravitas; but both were taught to a large extent, 
and even girls learnt to dance. The sweeping 
assertion of Cicero, " Nemo saltat sobrius nisi 
forte insanit," will be familiar to most as an illus- 
tration of Roman feeling on this point. 

On the moral training of the young we have very 
conflicting evidence. On the one hand we have 
such sentiments as Juvenal's often quoted '' Maxima 
debetur pueris reverentia," and instances of careful 
enquiry as to the character of a tutor in Pliny the 
Younger and Quintilian; while on the other we 
have bitter complaints that these duties were not 
observed; that children were allowed to witness 
the vices of their parents, and that no care was 
taken as to the morals of their teachers, who 



176 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME, 

were sometimes guilty of shameful abuse of their 
trust. 

The toga praetexta, or robe of childhood, was 
laid aside for the ordinary dress of the adult citizen 
at about the age of fifteen. No definite age was 
fixed by law or custom, but the theory was, that 
the change should be made at the age of puberty. 
In fact it varied between twelve and eighteen. 

The transfer of the boy from the grammarian 
to the rhetorician commonly took place before the 
assumption of the toga virilis, about the 14th year. 
It was in this third stage that the pupil was to pre- 
pare himself for the duties of active life. This was 
the aim of Roman education, practical here as in 
everything. Public speaking was the chief, almost 
the only, road to success in life for a citizen of the 
better class, and this was the subject to which he 
was now to devote his energies. Forensic oratory- 
was not only the chief test of a man's accomplish- 
ments ; it was of the utmost practical importance 
to every man of position at Rome.* Accordingly, 
the art was taught with a systematic seriousness 
unknown at the present day. The pupils were 

* Cf. Tac. Dial. Or. 37, ■wher'^, he says, speaking of republican 
times, that no one could attain power without the help of elo- 
quence. 



TEACHING OF RHETORIC. 177 

instructed to study the best models, and to declaim 
against one another on given subjects, the master 
criticising and correcting the while. Rules of ex- 
pression were formulated, and figures of speech 
carefully analysed and classified, so that oratory, 
instead of being left to the light of nature, as it 
now is, was raised into an exact science. Not 
that the pupil's whole time was occupied in 
learning the theory of rhetoric. A wide range 
of collateral subjects were studied for the sake 
of illustration, or simply to expand his mind. 
In particular, he- generally attended the lectures 
of a philosopher, whose duty it was to teach 
him the springs of morality, and mould his char- 
acter into a noble shape. It was hoped that the 
pupil would thus be led to think for himself, 
while his rhetorical studies would enable him 
to give just expression to the fruits of his medi- 
tations. But the tendency in our period was un- 
doubtedly to give too exclusive an attention to 
rhetoric, the more practical side of education. Quin- 
tilian complains that " no sooner had the tongue 
become an instrument of profit than the study of 
morals was neglected, or left to weaker intellects ;"* 

* Quint. Inst. Orat. 1. 1. 
M 



178 SOCIAL LIFE IN HOME. 

and the same regrets are made by other writers. 
Too much declamation might doubtless be inju- 
rious; but if the due proportion was kept, the Roman 
system of education seems well conceived, and cal- 
culated to produce good men and useful citizens. 

It was very common for young men to travel 
after completing their course of education at Rome. 
Athens, especially, was yqij often \isited, and the 
lectures of philosophers and rhetoricians there were 
numerously attended. Among distinguished men 
who went to Athens in this way we may mention 
Cicero, Atticus, Horace, and Ovid. 

The next event in the Roman's life which we 
have to consider is marriage. The ancient and 
venerable forms of confarreatio and coemptio had 
almost died out in our time ; and most marriages 
were now mere civil contracts, dissoluble at plea- 
sure. From the woman's point of view this loose 
form of alliance had considerable advantages. She 
did not pass into the maniLS of her husband, and 
retained the control over her property. IMarriages 
were often contracted at a very early age. We hear 
of bridegrooms of sixteen, and of brides of twelve 
or thirteen. The ordinary age was from about 
13 to 18 for girls, and from 20 to 30 for men. The 



MARRIAGE. 179 



bride had little or no choice in the matter. 
The bridegroom arranged the matter with the 
girl's father in a formal contract by the words 
" Spondesne ? " ^' Spondeo." Friedlander points out 
that the Latin language contains no word for to 
ask in marriage. It is a little curious to find this 
refusal of liberty of choice co-existing with the 
freedom allowed to girls in other respects. They 
were brought up in much the - same way as boys, 
learning, besides their own tasks of the distaff and 
the loom, to read and write and study standard 
authors under the eye of the grammarians. The 
husband was, however, not much better off in this 
respect. In most cases he knew nothing of his 
wife's character till after marriage ; often he had 
hardly seen her till the contract was completed. 
This unfortunate system, which has always been 
characteristic of southern Europe, caused very 
many ill-assorted unions and subsequent separa- 
tions. It was not at all uncommon to betroth 
mere' children, even infants, to each other; the 
imperial family affords several instances of this. 

The day of marriage was celebrated at Rome, as 
in. almost all societies, by feasting and merriment. 
The bride was arrayed in the marriage -veil and 

M 2 



180 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

girdled tunica, and her hair was arranged in six 
ringlets. The gods were consulted by sacrifice and 
the inspection of entrails ; and the simple nuptial 
ceremony was performed, after which a banquet 
was held in the house of the bride's father. Then 
followed the escorting of the bride to her new home, 
where she was lifted over the threshold to avoid 
the possibility of an ill-omened stumble, and the 
ceremonies ended with the rude " Thalassio " song 
outside the bridal chamber. 

Marriage for the Roman woman meant a tran- 
sition from rigid seclusion to almost unbounded 
liberty. It is true that we hear of unmarried girls 
attending the theatre and public spectacles, and 
being present at banquets ; but these appear to be 
exceptions due to the Hcense of the age, and the 
weight of evidence shows that great care was taken 
to seclude the maiden from all that might injiu-e 
her innocence. In republican days a censor had 
even punished a citizen of rank for kissing his vdiQ 
in the presence of his daughter. After marriage, 
on the other hand, the greatest liberty was allowed 
to the wife. She appeared, as a matter of course, 
at her husband's table, whether he had company 
or not ; she could go where she hked, either to the 



FREEDOM OF MARRIED WOMEN, 181 

temples of Isis and Serapis or to the circus and 
amphitheatre; she had her own troop of slaves, 
over whom she ruled without interference; she 
could frequent the public baths; in short, no 
restraint was put upon her except such as her own 
modesty might dictate. 

In our period this liberty was often disgracefully 
abused. It has been pointed out by more than 
one moralist, that in times of national corruption 
the women are generally more vicious even than 
the men. It was so at Rome. Not to mention 
the painful evidence furnished by Martial and Juve- 
nal, the mere fact that we find such expressions as 
" cuius castitas pro exemplo habita est," speaks 
volumes for the corruption of society. But on this 
subject we need not here dwell. It is only neces- 
sary to mention it in order to explain that strange 
phenomenon of Roman life, the unexampled fre- 
quency of divorce. We are assured by Seneca 
that there were women in Rome who counted 
their age not by the consuls, but by their husbands, 
and by Juvenal that one had married eight hus- 
bands in five years. Divorce was resolved upon 
on the slightest pretext. Cicero put away Terentia 
apparently because he had a rich ward whose for- 



182 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

tune he coveted; many separated merely from 
love of change, disdaining to give any reason, like 
^milius Paullus, who told his friends that '^ he 
knew best where his shoes pinched him." Pas- 
sion and avarice were of com^se the most common 
motives. 

Rich wives were not much sought after by 
wise men. Their complete emancipation made 
them difficult to manage, and many a henpecked 
husband acknowledged the truth of Martial's 
epigram — 

" Uxorem quare locupletem ducere nolim 
Quseritis ? Uxori nuhere nolo me£e," 

and exclaimed with Juvenal — 

" Intolerabilius nihil est quam f emina dives." 

Accordingly, since rich and poor wives were 
both objectionable, the large majority of men 
never married at all. So strong was the aversion 
from matrimony that neither taxes on bachelors 
nor rewards to fathers had any effect. In repub- 
lican days a Metellus had expressed the common 
opinion when he said, ^^ If, Romans, we could 
exist without a wife, we should all avoid the 
infliction, but since nature has ordained that we 



A VERSION FROM MARRIA GE. 183 

can neither be happy with a wife nor exist at all 
without one, let us sacrifice our own comfort to 
the good of our country." In the first century, 
A.D., men were less patriotic, but not a whit more 
disposed to married life. 

Single or married, sooner or later death called 
away the Roman from his labours or enjoyments. 
Too often the last scene was hastened by over- 
indulgence. The reckless life which most men of 
fashion led was not conducive to longevity, and 
additional dangers beset the favourites of fortune 
in the avarice of a bad emperor or the impatience 
of gi^eedy relations. But be the cause what it 
might, the end was to all the same : the eyes were 
closed by the nearest relation ; the cry (concla- 
matio) was raised to' indicate that life had 
departed ; and the now lifeless corpse was laid out 
in the atrium of the house, arrayed in the toga, 
and often decked with costly ornaments. This 
was the care of the hired undertaker (lihitinarius) 
and his assistant (j)ollmctor), whose duty it was to 
anoint the corpse and lay it out in the manner 
described. Every citizen* was clad in the toga 

* Surely not "every free man," as Becker. The passage lie 
quotes refers to voluntary disuse of the toga in their lifetime bj 
citizens. 



184 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

' after death : the senator of course displayed his 
broad stripe, and the triumphator probably his 
toga picta or palmata, A chaplet of flowers was 
sometimes placed on the brow of the deceased. 
Nor did the Romans omit the dismal mockery of 
hired mourners. At the foot of the bed, wherever 
the body lay, sat two waiting women (proEficcE) 
and a flute-player ; by the side stood three other 
mutes with dishevelled hair, beating their breasts 
in token of grief. These persons, the slaves of 
the undertaker, kept watch by the corpse during 
the greater part of the time which elapsed between 
the death and the burial. This time was com- 
monly about three days.* During the interv^al, a 
branch of cypress was hung over the door or laid 
in front of it,t to indicate a house of mourning, 
lest any priest should incur defilement by entering 
it. At the end of this period the funeral ceremony 
took place. If the deceased w^as a distinguished 
man, a crier was sent, according to primitive 
custom, through the streets, with the words " This 

* Another authority (Servius ad iEn. 5. 64) says seven days, 
wMch is unlikely. Perhaps, as with us, there was no fixed 
interval. 

f Of. Serv. ad^n. 2. 714. Becker's translator says, "A cypress 
was planted near the house," which is absurd. 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES. 185 

citizen is dead. If any one can come to the 
funeral, it is now time. He is being bome forth 
from his house." Meanwhile, the bier was care- 
fully carried out of the door, feet foremost, and the 
strange procession set out on its way. First came 
a band of flute-players, whose piping made a 
funeral one of the noisiest things in Rome ; then 
the female moinners already mentioned; next 
came — strange to say — a company of mimes and 
dancers, the leader of whom was dressed up 
to imitate the deceased. We cannot suppose that 
this class of persons was chosen merely as being 
likely to personate the deceased cleverly : there 
must have been an odd taste for the incongruity 
of comic actors taking part in a funeral profession. 
In fact, they were not expected to simulate grief, 
but often amused the spectators quite in the man- 
ner of their profession. The best story about 
them is given by Suetonius, when he is describing 
the splendid funeral of Vespasian, who had been 
notorious for his parsimony. During the proceed- 
ings the managers of the treasury were asked how 
much the funeral cost. They answered, '' A hun- 
dred thousand pounds." '^ Give me a thousand 
only," cried the pseudo- Vespasian, and throw my 



186 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

body into the Tiber I " Behind the mimes fol- 
lowed the procession of ancestors. The wax 
masks, representing those of the deceased's family 
who had filled any curule office, were taken down 
from the niches in the hall where they usually 
stood; and assumed by suitable persons, who also 
put on the official robes of the magistrate whom 
each represented ; and thus attired — ^' the trium- 
phator in his gold-embroidered, the censor in his 
purple, and the consul in his purple-broidered robe, 
with their lictors and the other insignia of office — 
all in chariots, gave the final escort to the dead."* 
The ceremony must have been half gi'otesque, 
half imposing, the one feeling or the other predo- 
minating according to the respect felt for the 
deceased, and the management of the proces- 
sion. Behind the ancestors came the corpse 
itself, laid upon an elevated couch, richly adorned 
with gold and purple. Pictures and effigies were 
often carried after the corpse. Round the bier, 
in their newly-donned caps of liberty, walked 
the slaves whom the dead man had emanci- 
pated by his will. These or the nearest rela- 
tions of the deceased, often acted as bearers. 

* Mommsen Hist, of Rome, 2. 395. 



FUNERAL CEREMONIES, 187 

A crowd of friends and spectators followed the 
bier. 

Thus the procession slowly proceeded to the 
Forum, where the bearers of the masks took their 
seats in the curule chairs, and the couch bearing 
the body was laid down. Then a friend or relation 
of the dead man pronounced the funeral oration, 
celebrating all the glories of his ancestors, and all 
the virtues for which he had been distinguished. 
The eulogy being ended, the procession resumed 
its course to the place of burial, which, by a law 
not always observed, was without the city-walls. 
There a pile of faggots and other combustible ma- 
terials awaited them, on which the corpse was 
reverently laid. Then, while the waiting women 
set up a doleful noise, and the friends of the dead 
man threw offerings upon the pile, the nearest 
relation applied the torch, and the flame soon 
spread over the whole structure. During the 
burning it was not unusual for rich families to 
celebrate fights of gladiators. When the pile was 
burnt, the bones were carefully collected, sprinkled 
with wine and milk, then dried, and placed in an 
urn, \^ath perfumes and unguents. The urn was 
then placed in the family sepulchre, which was 



188 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

generally by the side of one of the great roads just 
outside the walls. Formal words of parting were 
addressed to the deceased, and the company dis- 
persed. 

This is, of course, a description of the most 
splendid kind of funeral. It has been given at some 
length, as being perhaps the most characteristic 
picture of Roman life. We should add that the 
barbarous custom of supplying the dead man with 
the implements he used in life — ornaments, wea- 
pons, money, &c. — was largely obser^-ed, so that 
the interior of a family sepulchre sometimes re- 
sembled an ordinary dwelling-house. The poorer 
classes were content with much simpler obsequies. 
They often made use of " dove-cots," {cohi7nbarid)y 
in which a niche received each urn. Burial clubs, 
which were very common, possessed these colum- 
hariay and assigned places in them to their mem- 
bers. The lovrest class of all — abject slaves and 
friendless outcasts — were, it is to be feared, often 
left unburied, or lightly covered wath earth in 
the most hasty manner. Burial, as opposed to 
cremation, was not by any means unkno^\^l at 
Rome. Some famihes, e, g., the patrician gens 
Cornelia, always practised it. 



THE FUNEBAL BANQET. iS9 

The funeral banquet consisted of two parts : 
first, the silicenimmy which was held near the 
grave, and then the cena novendialisy which took 
place at the house of the dead man. Sacrifices 
and games were often held in his honour at the 
same time. 



( 190 ) 



CHAPTER VIIL 

DAILY LIFE. 

It is an unfortunate necessity for any one who 
tries to ^\Tite about the habits and manners of the 
Romans that he must confine himself almost 
exclusively to the upper classes. Copious as are 
the materials for the subject, they all bear on one 
section of society. We can form a ver\' clear idea 
of most of the occupations and amusements of the 
senator, the knight, and the milhonaire ; but we 
know next to nothing about the humble trades- 
man and poor client. The obscurity of lovr life is 
scarcely illumined by a ray of light, either from 
literature or monuments. It is a poor consolation 
to say that this silence is itself highly characteristic ; 
that the structure of Pagan civilisation was really 
based on a foundation of crushed and forgotten 
humanity ; we still wish to know how the despised 
masses lived, the " leaches of the treasury'," who 
received their daily dole of bread from Govern- 



RICH AND POOR, 191 

ment, and carried their scanty earnings to the hos- 
pitable popiiia, with its savoury fumes of tripe and 
garhc. But our curiosity must remain unsatisfied. 
Rome has given us no Dickens to paint the trials 
and the humours of her slums for our instruction ; 
the empire did not even produce a second Plautus. 
Perhaps after all we have got what is most impor- 
tant. The life of the toiler cannot differ very much 
from one age to another. The dull routine of 
hard mechanical labour, the struggle for bare 
existence, the sordid amusements, were the lot of 
the inhabitants of the crowded Suburra, as of the 
East End of London. What we more miss is some 
account of the manners of the middle class, the 
respectable but not too successful tradesmen, the 
strugghng professional men, and the small men of 
business. These classes have before now pre- 
served a country from the fate which a corrupt 
aristocracy was bringing upon it ; and we should 
like to know whether they hved an honest and 
healthy life at Rome, amid the flood of vice and 
degradation around them. But the rich are in 
most respects the best representatives of a civilisa 
tion ; they have the opportunity of putting into 
practice the floating aspirations of the community, 



192 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

and of employing for their own benefit the inge- 
nuity and industry of the less-favoured classes. 
Their habits are thus the best gauge of the attain- 
ments of their country in civilisation, and of the 
character which that civilisation has assumed. 
Only we may be sure that a picture drawn from 
the manners of the aristocracy is not better, but 
worse, than the truth as regards the whole nation. 
We in England should readily admit this. A 
short time ago there appeared in a monthly 
periodical an article entitled, ^' How the Rich live." 
The description there given of the day of an idle 
and wealthy English family bears a fairly close 
resemblance to the records of the day of a Roman 
noble, as collected from contemporary authors. 
If anything, the first century seems to have the 
advantage over the nineteenth, inasmuch as the 
Roman professed to give some part of the morn- 
ing to serious occupation, while the Englishman, 
according to the writer in question, devotes the 
short interval between breakfast and lunch to 
sport or idleness. In gluttony the two seem 
about on a par, the main part of the day in both 
cases being given up to the pleasures of the table. 
We feel how unjust and misleading such a descrip- 



ENGLISH AND ROMAN LUXURY. 193 

tion would be if exhibited as a picture of English 
civilisation as a whole. It is possible that gluttony- 
may be a national temptation with us, but we 
should justly object to see it brought forward 
as our chief characteristic. Still more should we 
feel the injustice of leaving out of sight all our 
national virtues — our industry and integrity, and 
whatever else we love to credit ourselves with. 
Yet this is what we are obliged to do in the case 
of the Romans. The " daily life of the Romans " 
means the daily life of Atticus and Pliny, or of 
Apicius and Trimalchio. We can say nothing, 
because we know nothing, of the common-place 
but useful and industrious lives of humbler citizens. 
We shall do the Romans injustice, and imbibe 
false ideas ourselves, unless we remember that we 
are describing a small section of society, not the 
whole. Let us keep in mind the wide differences 
of habits which exist in our own community, and 
we shall then be less likely to join in the hasty 
and sweeping denunciations which have been 
poured upon Roman civilisation. An exclusive 
study of the manners of the aristocracy would, we 
admit, give a ver)^ false and unfavourable impres- 
sion of the character of English society. Let us 

N 



194 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

remember that our knowledge of Roman life 
confines us to a one-sided description of this kind, 
and that it is no more true to say that the Roman 
working-day was over by mid-day than that the 
English day begins with a ten o'clock breakfast. 
With this preparatory warning we will begin 
to describe, as best we may, the course of the 
Roman day. 

An undisturbed night's rest was almost one of 
the privileges of the rich at Rome. The owner of 
a large mansion could place his bed-chamber out 
of hearing of the streets. The rest of the citizens 
had hardly composed themselves to rest after the 
last diner-out and serenader had ceased to make 
sleep impossible by their drunken songs and 
doleful ditties, when the coin-stamper began to 
hammer on his anvil, the schoolmaster to fulmi- 
,nate at his noisy class, and the hapless throng of 
clients to hurry through the streets to pay their 
respects to their patron. Those who had not to 
perform this troublesome duty might consult their 
own tastes as to the hour of rising. The elder 
Pliny was usually at work by seven or eight, if not 
earh^r, but others might prefer to sleep off the 
fumes of last night's Falernian till a much latei 



TEE MORNING HOURS. 195 

hour. Persius gives a not very pleasant picture 
of a young gentleman of this kind whom his friend 
finds still in bed near mid-day. It was the good 
old custom for the household to meet at an early 
hour for " family prayer/' as we may call it. The 
paterfamilias offered a sacrifice at the household 
altar with his wife, children, and slaves standing 
round. His clients and friends came in at this time 
to pay their morning call, and the patron was 
often willing to discuss their affairs with them, and 
give them advice and assistance. This is the 
pleasant side of the picture ; in many cases the 
" officia antelucana " were equally degrading to 
patron and client. 

At about nine the salutations were over, and 
men who had any business to do began their 
work. A large number found their way to the 
Forum, either as pleaders, judges, or spectators in 
the numerous law-suits : many went to attend a 
marriage, funeral, sacrifice, or birth-day feast, 
at a friend's house ;* others set themselves to kill 
time till dinner by dancing, dice-playing, drinking, 
or other frivolous amusements ; many betook 

* For the engrossing character of these social duties, cf . Plin. 
Ep. 1. 9. 

N 2 



196 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

themselves straight to one of the great pubhc 
baths, or to the more manl)' exercises of the 
Campus Martius. Before setting out to any of 
these occupations it was usual to take a light meal 
called jentaculii7n, consisting generally of ^^'ine, 
dates, olives, cheese, &c., but sometimes also of 
meat. 

The next event in the day was \\vq prandhnn or 
mid-day meal, also called vie rend a, which was 
more like a substantial lunch than a breakfast, at 
least in rich households. It was followed by the 
siesta, which the climate of Italy made almost 
necessar}^ This generally lasted about an hour, 
after which most people took a bath.* This 
might take up the time till about three o'clock, 
when it was already not too early to think about 
the great event of the day, the ce7ia. 

We shall reser^'e some of the points connected 
wath this meal for the chapter on luxmy^, for 
nowhere else did extravagance and self-indulgence 
shew themselves in so rampant a form. The 
ceyia was actually the last event of the day, 
beginning about three o'clock, and lasting till late 
evening, if not past midnight. Three hours was 

* The baths are described in the chapter on Amusements. 



THE " CENAr 197 



apparently the shortest time that a rich man took 
over his dinner. But we must here remember 
what we said at the beginning of the chapter. 
The working man's dinner must have been a very- 
different affair. We do not know whether he 
took it at the same time ; if he did, we may be 
sure that his business called him back long before 
six o'clock. But the rich, as we said, remained at 
the table all the afternoon and evening. Hospi- 
tality was well kept up, so that it seems probable 
that it was the exception to dine alone. The 
ordinary number at a dinner party was nine. 
This was probably determined by the size of the 
tables and couches, three reclining on each of 
three sides, but the number has always been found 
a pleasant one for conversation. If a larger 
number were invited, more tables were prepared. 
The place of honour at table was '' imiis in medio j' 
the right-hand corner of the middle couch, while 
the host occupied the adjoining place ^^ swmniis in 
imoy This gradation of places was part of the 
etiquette of the dinner table, which was carried to 
a great and indeed tiresome extent, so that a man 
unused to society found himself embarrassed and 
ridiculed for his ignorance of the rules of behaviour. 



198 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

The absence of knives and forks made it difficult 
to eat gracefully, and the boor was recognized by 
the way in which he smeared his face and hands 
with the viands. A spoon was the only imple- 
ment used by the guests, though the carv^er — a 
slave, of course — used a knife. Each guest brought 
a napkin to wipe his hands. The custom of re- 
clining, with the left elbow resting on a cushion, 
was now universal for men ; women and children 
sat, the position being considered more proper. 
This, however, like most customs founded on 
modesty, w^as often transgressed in our period. 
Round tables, called sigmata, were sometimes used 
in imperial times, the couches being then curved 
so as to fit them. These accommodated from five 
to eight persons. The invitations to dinner were 
sent by means of a slave called vocator, but the 
guests were often permitted to bring friends of 
their own, who were called lunbrce. These 
inferior persons were usually relegated to the 
imiis lectics. The guests came dressed in a festive 
attire called sy7ithesis, the shape of which is not 
kno\vn. It was often of brilliant colours, scarlet, 
green, or purple, and ostentatious people some- 
times changed it several times during an evening. 



TABLE-TALK. 199 



Of the materials of the banquet we hope to speak 
in another place; it consisted of three parts, the 
promtdsis or giistatio, intended to whet the 
appetite and aid the digestion; the cena proper, 
which might consist of any number of courses 
from one to eight or more, and the dessert. The 
conversation during the meal commonly turned 
on the public spectacles, the comparative skill of 
famous gladiators, or jocke3^s, and the prospects of 
the different colours at the coming races. These 
topics were the more popular, as offering no 
handle to the treachery of the delator, who might 
take advantage of the festivity of the evening, 
and report an unguarded utterance as treason to 
the emperor.* Small talk might, however, flag 
during so long a meal; and accordingly it was 
usual to have music between or during the courses. 
Slaves were educated especially with the view to 
entertain guests in this way, and those who had 

* Horace mentions, as a sample of small talk, "Thrax est 
gallina Syro par ? " See also Mart. 1. 48. 

" De prasino conviva mens venetoque loquatur, 
Nee faciunt quemquam pocula nostra reum." 

Paley takes this couplet in the opposite sense, as if the circus 
were the most dangerous topic of conversation ; a view which 

seems very improbable. 



200 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

none, hired musicians for the occasion. Martial, 
however, hke Socrates, preferred a dinner without 
music. Dancing, rope-dancing, juggHng, and jest- 
ing were also introduced for the amusement of the 
company, and not unfrequently the host took the 
opportunity of reading or reciting his own com- 
positions to his guests, who felt that they were 
earning their dinner when they applauded each 
point in the tragedy or epic, written on both sides 
of the parchment, and even then not finished. 
Sometimes standard authors, or the last new 
popular poem, were read or recited, and this was 
probably the chief acquaintance with literature 
that the man of society obtained. The conver- 
sation, when it reached more serious topics than 
sport, was probably clever, ready, and sparkling. 
The constant intercourse of society and the 
method of education were both likely to produce 
wit and conversational power. The Romans had 
no newspapers, except the Acta Diurna, which 
was under government supervision, and they relied 
to a great extent on the talk of the dinner table to 
keep them supplied with the news of the day, the 
state of foreign pohtics, the newest domestic 
scandal, and the latest literary sensation. Con- 



NEWS AND GOSSIP, 201 

versation thus took the place of the daily press, 
the society journal, and the literary review. It 
was also made to do duty as a novel, and the 
" raconteurs," tellers of anecdotes, amusing " Mile- 
sian stories," and witty epigrams, were much 
sought after in society. The capital prided itself 
greatly on its sprightly humour, and the word 
urhanitas expresses the ready wit in which it 
excelled. Domitius Marsus wrote a book ^^ de 
Urbanitate^' which was probably a collection of 
good repartees, and rules for bringing them out. 
Other persons, who were not so gifted, might 
make it their business to collect the latest in- 
telligence, and when occasion offered pour forth 
information from every province in the empire, 
like the telegram-column in our daily newspapers. 
These walking bulletins were not always much 
more appreciated than the meddlesome busybodies 
nicknamed " Ardeliones," who were among the 
pests of Roman society. It is to be feared that 
the retailers of scandal were more readily listened 
to, and that the talk of the dinner table was a 
dreaded danger to all who had a character to lose. 
License of speech and freedom from restraint were 
encouraged by the deep potations which accom- 



202 SOCIAL LIFE IN BOME. 

panied the feast from the beginning to the end. 
It was usual to drink in the Greek fashion, i.e., 
according to fixed rule, one of the party being 
chosen (generally by dice) the master of the 
revels, to settle how much ^^ine was to be drunk, 
and in what proportion it was to be mixed "with 
water. The wine was handed round by pages 
generally selected for their beauty. It was prized 
according to its kind and age. Setinian and 
Csecuban were accounted the best, then Falernian. 
Some Ts-ine was preser^-ed as long as a hundred 
years or more, the date being attested b}^ the label 
on the bottle. Contests in drinking were not 
uncommon, and a strong head was considered a 
thing to be proud of.* Drinking of healths was 
much practised, the guests generally pledging their 
absent mistresses ; these potations were sometimes 
continued even till the morning light, and the 

* Excessive drinkiiig was a common rice at Kome, though the 
wine of the ancients seems not to have produced such degrading 
effects as beer and spirits. Pliny the Elder tells us a good deal 
about the devices which were adopted to excite thirst : some, he 
says, drank hemlock, that they might be obliged to drink wine to 
save their lives ; others took piimice-stone powdered up, or other 
doses. Tiberius went to see a man of Mediolanum, who could 
swallow 17 pints at a draught. The emperor himself was no 
mean proficient in the axt, and his son Drusus inherited his 
gifts. 



LIFE IN THE COUNTRY-HOUSE. 203 

peaceable citizen often had his slumbers broken 
by a reveller returning home. 

So ended the day of the rich idler at Rome. 
In the country a simpler and miore healthy way of 
life prevailed, but the same general plan was 
adhered to. Hospitahty was not neglected in the 
country-houses, and birthdays, anniversaries, or 
religious festivals gave frequent excuses for enter- 
tainments. In the country a man had more 
opportunity for indulging his private tastes, and 
was less bound by the trammels of society. We 
have two interesting descriptions of the habits of 
men of rank and wealth but of high character, 
who were able thus to map out their day accord- 
ing to their own ideas. Pliny the Younger 
describes the life of Spurinna, an old man who 
had retired from active life. It v/as his custom to 
rise at seven, and walk three miles, the time 
being occupied by talking or reading aloud as he 
walked. Then after a short rest, with a book or 
conversation, he drove with his wife or a friend 
about seven miles. Next he walked again about 
a mile, then spent the time till two or three in 
writing. The hour for the bath was three in 
winter, two in summer. He prepared himself for 



204 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

it by walking naked in the sun, and by active 
exercise at ball. After the bath he rested and 
listened to hght reading till dinner was announced 
(later, be it observ'ed, than the ordinar\^ hour at 
Rome), and this as usual occupied the rest of the 
day. By these habits, says Pliny, he had pre- 
served his health and vigour till the age of seventy- 
seven. The other description we also owe to 
Pliny. It is that of the life of his uncle, the 
author of the ^' Natural Histor\'." Like Spurinna, 
Pliny was a very early riser, and when at Rome 
often visited Vespasian in the small hours, for he, 
too, used to work at night. Then he read and 
wrote till the time for the siesta, spending part of 
the time lymg in the sun and taking notes from a 
book which was read to him. He bathed before 
the siesta, not at the usual time, and after it 
worked again till dinner time. Diuing dinner a 
book was read, and the insatiable student even 
made notes between his mouthfuls. He rose 
early (i.e. before nightfall) from dinner, and 
apparently worked again. This extraordinary 
mode of hfe was carried on not only in the 
countr}' but at Rome. Its results were seen in a 
perfect hbrar}' of books on ever}' subject, from 



FLINTS DAY. 205 



physical science to rhetoric, from history to 
cavalry drill. We must be cautious of generalizing 
from such an exceptional character, but intellectual 
industry was a real feature of Roman civilisation, 
and many who never produced anything original 
took a superficial interest in literature, and devoted 
some hours every day to hearing books read aloud 
or attempting to write themselves. 



( -206 ) 



CHAPTER IX, 

AMUSEMENTS. 

The Roman populace, according to Juvenal, cared 
for only two things — Bread and the public shows. 
Without the former they could not exist ; without 
the latter they would have felt their lives, not 
worth li-vang. The circus and the amphitheatre 
were indeed an absolute necessity, both to the 
people and to the government. To the people 
they furnished the means of passing idle days in 
pleasure and excitement ; to the emperor they 
gave the opportunity of diverting the minds of 
his subjects from political affairs, and of supplying 
them with less dangerous food for rivalry and 
discussion. "Allow them, Csesar," said Pylades, 
" to excite themselves about us, for then they do 
not think about politics."* It has been justly 
remarked that the spectacles under the Empire 

" * Macrob. 2. 7. Kai dxapiartU, (SaaiXev ; laaov avTov'i jnpi 



POLITICAL DEMONSTRATIONS. 207 

supplied to a great extent the place of the Comitia 
under the Republic. They gave the only oppor- 
tunity for the citizens to meet together in the mass 
and express their opinions on any subject. At a 
time when literature was gagged, when political 
meetings and secret societies were alike suppressed, 
when even private speech was silenced by fear of 
the delator, there still remained the " hcense " of 
the circus and the amphitheatre, which enabled 
the Roman people to make its will knoAvn, and 
often to w^rest compliance from a reluctant 
emperor. The shouts of the assembled thousands, 
carefully organised beforehand, on several occa- 
sions procured the revocation of an unpopular edict, 
or the punishment of a hated minister. Even 
Tiberius was induced by the shouts of the people 
to restore a statue which he had removed from 
the baths of Agrippa and set up in his own 
palace.* The Emperors were not always, how- 
ever, so compliant. Augustus refused to repeal 
his marriage law in deference to the popular 
clamour, and Caius even seized and put to death 
the ringleaders of a similar demonstration. In 
general, hov^^ever, no restrictions were put upon 

* Plin. H. N. 31. 62. 



208 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

this license, which seems to have increased in 
the later period of the empire. Tertullian, for 
instance, speaks of ridicule and abuse directed 
against the Emperor himself, as a common occur- 
rence at the games ; but of this we find no trace 
in the first century. These demonstrations were, 
as we have said, organized beforehand, and it 
stands to reason that, in cases where the people 
were not of one mind, rival shouts, each trying to 
drown the other, were raised from different sides. 
Sometimes the government tried to utilize the 
custom for its own purposes. Titus is said to have 
hired persons to demand in the theatre the death of 
men whom he suspected and wished to get rid of.* 
Private malice was sometimes indulged by shout- 
ing scandalous insinuations at the games, and this 
was punished as a very malicious form of libel. 

But if the spectacles were a political necessity, 
they played a far more important part as the 
amusement of an idle population. How much 
space they filled in the hfe of the metropolis may 
be estimated when we enumerate the various 
feasts on which they were given. The number of 

* Suet. Tit. 6. Titus, however, was not yet emperor when he 
did this. 



NUMBER OF PUBLIC HOLIDAYS. 209 

these holidays was constantly increasing. Under 
Tiberius it had already reached eighty-seven days, 
and before the end of the century it probably 
exceeded one hundred. But these numbers only 
represent the regular festival-days. There were 
also the extraordinary fetes, which occurred very 
frequently, and were sometimes prolonged to an 
inordinate length of time. Thus the opening of 
the Colosseum was celebrated by a fete of one 
hundred days, and Trajan, in io6, gave one 
which lasted one hundred and twenty-three days. 
In the time of Aurelius the dies fasti had been 
reduced to two hundred and thirty. Such was the 
life which the rulers of the world chose for them- 
selves, and which the subject provinces had to 
support by the fruits of their labour.* 

The spectacles which were enacted on these 
numerous holidays were principally of three kinds. 
First in importance, and for a long time in popu- 
larity, were the combats of gladiators and wild 
beasts in the arena. Next were the horse races in 

* The frequency of spectacles, of course, varied in difEerent 
reigns. Tiberius is said never to have given a show of gladiators 
himself, and to have rarely attended such exhibitions. Hence the 
rush to see the spectacle at Fidena, given by AtiliuSj a freedman, 
which led to the disaster thera 



210 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

the circus, which at last evoked even more enthu- 
siasm than the "games" of the amphitheatre. 
And lastly the dramatic exhibitions, which, in the 
degraded form of pantomime, were almost as 
popular as the fiercer forms of entertainment. To 
these must be added the varied class of street 
entertainments, such as mountebanks, jugglers, 
and street musicians ; and the illuminations which 
were given in honour of special occasions. This 
last class will not require much space ; but the 
three great entertainments of the arena, the circus, 
and the theatre, call for more detailed attention. 

Of the gladiatorial shows, which we shall con- 
sider first, we have already spoken in a fonner 
chapter. The remarks we then made were 
directed to the moral effects of this singular insti- 
tution, and to the indications which it gives of the 
state of feeling then prevailing on the subject of 
humanity. We shall now approach the same 
subject from a different point of \^ew, and consider 
the games of the amphitheatre as one of the three 
great amusements of the Roman populace. 

The origin and early histor}^ of the games need 
not detain us. The tradition which ascribes their 
invention to Etruria is supported by evidence, and 



GLADIATORS. 211 



V.^ 



we may regard it as certain that this was one of 
the evil legacies that Rome inherited by the 
absorption of their peculiar people. In the be- 
ginning of our period they had already gained 
immense popularity, and were spreading over the 
provinces, till even Greece, which had long refused 
to tolerate them, boasted its amphitheatre. 

The combatants in the arena belonged to four 
classes — slaves, prisoners of war, condemned crimi- 
nals, and free men who voluntarily entered the 
profession. The exposure of slaves was eventually 
forbidden. That of prisoners was justified by the 
harsh law of antiquity. Criminals were con- 
demmed to fight, as an aggravation of the capital 
sentence, for no discharge or quarter was allowed 
them.* It was sometimes suspected that innocent 
persons were occasionally condemned to this 
punishment in order to make up the number of 
combatants, and when we hear of 300 criminals 
exposed at one time, it must be confessed that 
there were grounds for the suspicion. The fourth 
class of volunteers was composed of various 
elements. Libertines who had exhausted their 

* A popular prince would, however, sometimes grant even a 
criminal to the request of the populace. Suet. Ner. 12. 

O 2 



212 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

fortunes, inexperienced young men who were 
inveigled into joining a school of gladiators, des- 
peradoes of all kinds, submitted themselves to the 
stem discipline of the lanistoe, and took the oath 
which bound them to submit to be burnt alive, 
beaten, or killed with the sword at the bidding of 
the trainer. Some embraced the profession from 
mere love of fighting or of notoriety,* and the 
rewards which could be won by a successful 
swordsman were enough to tempt even the am- 
bitious. 

The training through which the gladiator went 
was methodical and severe. He was hardened to 
bear pain by being beaten with rods and whips. 
His diet was regulated w^th a view to increase to 
the utmost his strength and activity. He was 
constantly practised in the use of the weapons he 
was to use in the arena, and great attention was 
paid to bearing and deportment, which were 
almost as much criticised as skill in fencing. On 
the day of the combat he was attired in splendid 
armour and furnished ^vith richly adorned weapons; 
nothing was omitted which could add to the effect 

* Lucian introduces a story of a Scythian who offered himself 
as a gladiator in order to earn 10,000 sesterces to help a friend in 
distress. 



COST OF THE SHOWS. 213 

of his appearance, or enhance the brilhance of the 
show. The expense of all this preparation and 
equipment fell ultimately on the giver of the 
games, who was either the emperor, or an aspirant 
to public office, or sometimes (especially in the 
country towns) a wealthy parvenu. Some rich 
men kept gladiators of their own, and these, on 
more than one occasion, displayed a fidelity and 
devotion to their master which fills us with 
surprise. The cost of a show was, of course, 
immense, and was felt to be a burden even by 
the wealthy Roman aristocracy. Many able men 
were debarred from pubhc life through their in- 
abihty or unwillingness to incur the expense ; and 
at last (though not in our century) it became 
difficult to find qualified persons to take the 
highest magistracies. A great part of the money 
passed through the hands of the lanistce, who 
often contrived to make large fortunes out of 
their disreputable trade.* Large salaries were 
also paid to celebrated swordsmen, and hand- 
some presents were given them besides their re- 
gular pay. Sometimes " rudiarii^' or discharged 
gladiators, were induced to re-enter the arena for 

• Cf. Marl. 11. 63. 



214 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

a large sum.* When we consider the expense of 
pro\iding ^^^ld beasts from Asia and Africa,t and 
the presents which were often scattered broadcast 
among the spectators, we are almost disposed to 
wonder that private fortunes could ever endure 
such a drain. 

The social position of the gladiator bore some 
resemblance to that of the jockey in some circles of 
modem England. His trade was always considered 
a mean one, but the passion for sport raised the suc- 
cessful performer into a hero, so that the champion 
*^ secutor" or " retiarius " divided \s4th the heroes of 
the circus the honour of being more talked about 
than any one else in Rome. The stigma, however, 
still remained. It was rare for the sons of gladiators, 
even when rich, to hold official positions ; and those 
who left the arena without ha\ing saved money 
often sank to the lowest depth of poverty and 
misery. 

It is not difficult to conjure up a picture of the 
Colosseum on a festival day. 80,000 human beings 

* Tiberius (Suet. Tib. 7) paid 100,000 sesterces a piece to rmli- 
aril to induce them to fight in one of his spectacles. 

f This, ho-wever, generally fell on the provincials, who were 
forced to contribute animals for the games under the name of 
vectigal aedilicivm. 



SCENE IN THE AMPHITHEATRE. 215 

are there assembled in their hohday attire, the 
citizens crowned with garlands and in white robes, 
the senators with their broad purple stripe, and 
behind them the motley crowd of all nations and 
costumes, the vestals in their seat of honour next 
to the arena, the emperor with his suite in the 
podium, — all sit intent on the brilliant scenes 
enacted in the centre of the vast building, scenes 
varied by every device of art and ingenuity, and 
continued in an unbroken succession from sunrise 
to sunset. Now a duel between a " secutor " and 
a '^ retiarius," produces splendid feats of agility 
and dexterity; now the '^ parmularii" and the 
adherents of the larger shield "back" their re- 
spective factions with clamorous shouts ; now the 
arena is suddenly filled by troops of armed men, who, 
concealed in vaults beneath, seem to rise by magic 
from the earth; now a crowd of savage beasts — 
captured, some in the Soudan, some in Central Asia, 
some in the wild regions of the north — are let loose 
to fight and kill each other : now some wretched 
criminal is exposed, tied to a stake, to be lacerated 
by a bear or a bull, or burnt in the tunica molesta; 
now Scaevola, in the person of an unhappy male- 
factor, allows his right hand to be consumed in 



216 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

the "Tuscan fire"; now the whole arena is sub- 
merged, and a sea-fight enacted ^^ath all the pic- 
turesque evolutions of ancient naval warfare. Such 
were some of the exhibitions which captivated the 
Roman populace. We shudder at the cruelty, but 
we can well understand the terrible fascination 
which such spectacles must have exerted. 

The Great Circus, which filled the valley between 
the Palatine and Aventine Hills, was probably the 
most stupendous building ever erected for pubhc 
spectacles. It held at different periods 150,000, 
250,000, and lastly 380,000 spectators, the second 
of these figures referring to the time of Titus, and 
the last to the fourth century. The space enclosed 
by this enormous structure was used for several 
purposes. Besides the horse races, which were 
the main entertainment pro^-ided for those who 
attended the circus, gladiatorial combats on a large 
scale were performed there, and sometimes athletic 
contests were held in the circus instead of in the 
stadia built for the purpose. But the chariot races 
were the main attraction, and it was for these that 
the arrangements of the circus were designed. All 
round the course tiers of seats rose one behind 
the other to a great height, the pulvinar of the 



CHARIOT RA CES. 217 

emperor being placed in the most advantageous 
position for seeing both the beginning and the end 
of the race. Down the middle of the course ran 
the spina, a low wall with melee or turning posts 
at each end, these last being composed of three 
conical pillars set on a pedestal.* The number of 
rounds run was registered by the simple contrivance 
of seven balls, one of which was placed on f the 
spina at the end of each ^^lap". The stalls where 
the horses were kept were at one end of the 
course, behind the starting point. The racecourse 
had this advantage over ours in England, that the 
spectators never lost sight of the horses, which 
came round and round several times before the end 
of the race. It is difficult to imagine any spectacle 
more exciting to a frivolous populace than these 
circenses. From sunrise to sunset, day after day 
during festivals, which sometimes lasted from one 
week to another, the Roman people could regale 
themselves with a ceaseless succession of chariot 
races. We hear of twelve, and even of twenty- 
four courses being run in a single day, the latter 
being apparently the more usual number; and 

* Metasque imitata ctipressus. Ov. M. 10. 106. 
t Or, perhaps, takeji off it, Varro R. R. 1. 2. § 11, 



218 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

when we reflect on the length of the course, which 
was ordinarily seven times round the circus, we 
are forced to the conclusion that not less than 
twelve hours of the day must sometimes have been 
taken up by the actual races, without making 
any allowance for intervals.* It was, however, 
usual to allow four interv^als, the principal at mid- 
day, during which the spectators might retire for 
refreshment or short exercise. I am not aware 
that we hear of any arrangement corresponding to 
our ^' keeping places," though we know that the 
struggle for good seats was very keen, and that the 
crowds were wont to assemble many hours before 
the races began : but we hear of locarii being paid 
to take seats beforehand for those who could not 
come early, and possibly spectators employed their 
slaves to prevent others from occupying their 
places during their absence. The interest of the 
races was not confined to trials of speed among 

* Friedlander calculates the length of the course at 7-^ kil., 
and the time occupied by each race at, at least, half-an-hour. I 
am disposed to regard this last estimate as rather too high, for we 
hear, as he tells us himself, of 48 courses being run in a single day 
on an exceptional occasion, a feat scarcely compatible with this 
estimate of time, even if we adopt his supposition that the length 
of the courses was shortened on this occasion. Guhl and Koner 
estimate 25 minutes as the duration of a race. 



FACTIONS OF THE CIRCUS, 219 

the horses. Skill and chance both played an im- 
portant part, and the danger which attended every 
race added zest to the enjoyment of the spectators. 
The reliefs, and other representations of races which 
have come down to us, nearly all represent chariots 
overturned and men and horses strugghng in wild 
confusion on the ground. Such accidents must 
have been very frequent in rounding the sharp 
turn at the end of the spina, and we are not sur- 
prised to hear of dangerous and even fatal acci- 
dents suffered by the drivers. But the main ex- 
citement was due to the existence of factions 
pledged to favour one of the four parties into which 
the competitors were divided. These parties were 
named after four colours, red, white, blue, and green, 
and every charioteer was attached to one of these 
parties, and wore its colours on the day of the 
race. Two of the colours, the red and the white, 
were eclipsed during our period by the other two, 
so that the chief rivalry was between the blues 
and the greens. These two colours divided, one 
may say, the whole population of Rome, and pro- 
duced as keen a rivalry and party spirit as had 
ever been evoked by the constitutional struggles 
of better days. This monstrous absurdity was 



220 SOCIAL LIFE IX I?OME. 

grovdng rapidly during the whole of the first cen- 
tury, but it did not reach its height till long after. 
It was reser^-ed for the new Rome of Constantine 
to see its streets deluged with the blood of its 
citizens slain in tmnults excited by these coloured 
rags.* In our period the e^il, though great enough, 
did not reach gigantic proportions. The Romans 
of the early Empire were generally content to shew 
their interest in their pany by la\-i5h expenditure 
on training, by extravagant rewards to drivers who 
had led their colours to victor}-, and by exalting 
Scopus and Incitatus and Andrcemon to a celebrity 
which the most popular poets could not hope to 
rival. The drivers could make, Juvenal says, as 
much money as a himdred advocates, and if they 
escaped being crushed or dashed to pieces on the 
racecourse, might look forward to a comfortable 
retirement after a few years of danger, excitement, 
and notoriety. Their social position, though higher 
than that of the gladiator, was still a low one. Most 
of them were either slaves, or of the rank just 
above slaver}-; and it was considered highly dis- 
reputable for a Roman citizen of rank to exhibit 

* The Xika sedition, in which 30,000 persons are said to h&xQ 
perished, is described with great power by Gibbon, ch- 40. 



NOTORIETY OF THE JOCKEYS. 221 

himself in the costume of a jockey. So great, how- 
ever, was the enthusiasm evoked by the racecourse 
that even senators and knights could not be re- 
strained from appearing in the circus. When we 
remember the manner in which Juvenal speaks of 
a consul who drove his own carriage on the high 
road, we can form some idea of the scandal which 
this practice caused, and the mischief which the 
degradation of the upper classes in the racecourse, 
as in the arena, inflicted on society in general. 
When a Roman lost his sense of dignity and self- 
respect he lost that which produced the best 
features of his character, and probably nothing 
did more to break the ties of nationality in the 
city than the shameless participation of some of 
the nobility in these spectacles. Except for this, 
we cannot regard the circus as an altogether per- 
nicious institution, considering the condition of the 
population of Rome. It did harm, no doubt, in 
fostering the idleness to which they were prone, 
but it may be questioned whether, if the races had 
not existed to act as a safety valve for the popular 
factiousness, graver political dangers might not 
have arisen. At all events, in so far as they out- 
bid in popularity the far more horrible and de- 



222 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME, 

grading shows of the amphitheatre, we may admit 
that they did some service. 

It might be supposed that the enthusiasm which 
the gladiatorial games and the races of the circus 
excited among the people left them no time for 
other amusements. But though the theatre never 
quite rivalled either of these in popularity, the 
Romans of the first century were very far from 
indifferent to this form of entertainment. On the 
contrary, they found time amid their other diver- 
sions to take a very strong interest in dramatic 
exhibitions, and even to extend to favourite actors 
some of the partisan spirit which they shewed to 
distinguished jockeys and gladiators. The theatre 
always remained a highly important feature in 
Roman life. 

There is, perhaps, no better indication of the 
character of a nation than its stage. In our ov,m 
history, the drama of the Elizabethan era, of the 
Restoration, and of the present day, all present a 
faithful image of the current taste of the time to 
which they belong. The same ma}'- be said of the 
modem French drama. We shall therefore ap- 
proach the subject of the Roman stage with great 
interest, as one of the most important portions of 



THE STAGE. 223 



our subject. The taste of the people in dramatic 
exhibitions will enable us to lay our finger on 
more than one of the salient features of their 
social life. 

Suetonius speaks of three theatres in Rome.* 
They were called after Pompey, Balbus, and Mar- 
cellus, and probably held from 50,000 to 80,000 
spectators. They were arranged in the form of a 
semicircle, with rows of seats rising to a great 
height, so as to accommodate the greatest possible 
number of spectators. The size of the theatre 
must, however, have made hearing difficult, and 
placed genuine drama at a disadvantage. Perhaps 
the popularity of the mimes, of which we shall 
speak presently, was partly due to this. Gesticu- 
lation may be seen and appreciated where dialogue 
can be only imperfectly heard. 

The old Atellan farce still maintained its popu- 
larity among the lower classes. The well-known 
characters — Maccus, the amorous old scoundrel; 
Dossennus the swindling soothsayer; Bucco, the 
babbling fool, still exhibited their familiar charac- 
teristics in new and old combinations. These pro- 
totypes of the Italian comedy of the middle ages, 
* Suet. Aug. 44. 



224 SOCIAL LIFE IX BOME. 

and of our modem pantomime, were always 
popular with the masses at Rome, whose tastes 
were further consulted by a large admixture of 
grossness and ribaldr}^ in the performance. The 
mime, properly so called, seems to have differed 
only slightly from the Atellan farce. It admitted, 
however, a somewhat wider field of subjects, and 
thus enabled the playwright to spice his drama 
viith profanity as well as indecency, or to horrify 
his audience by skilful imitations of scenes of 
torture. The accounts we possess of these repre- 
sentations seem to indicate an extremely low and 
degraded taste on the part of the populace. Such 
intellectual pleasure as was sought was derived 
chiefly from audacious salhes against the first prin- 
ciples of morality, or from jests directed against 
the gods ; while the plot generally turned, as in 
French fiction of the present day, on the successful 
\dolation of the marriage tie and the discomfiture 
of the injured husband. But the main attraction 
of the mime was even a lower one than this. That 
shameless freedom of speech, which Martial, him- 
self one of the greatest offenders against decency, 
praises as '' Romana simplicitas," was here exer- 
cised to its fullest extent, and even the eyes were 



POLITICAL ALLUSIONS. 225 

gratified by the most disgraceful exhibitions under 
pretext of the hcense of the Floraha.* 

It is necessary to say thus much on the subject, 
because a profane and immoral stage is, as we have 
said, a sure sign of an irrehgious and corrupt 
society, and it is impossible to omit so important 
a feature in the life of the epoch. There was, 
however, another use to which the mimes were 
put. We have already mentioned the license 
taken by the assembled people in the circtis and 
amphitheatre of expressing their wishes in the 
presence of the emperor if they wanted any law 
repealed or unpopular minister punished. We 
said then that disrespectful cries directed against 
the emperor himself were almost unknown in the 
first century, though common afterwards. But 
the Roman people needed some means of satirising 
their rulers, and, as even the " licentia circi" had 
its limits, some other and less direct way had to 
be found for expressing what could not be said 
openly. This was found in the mimes and farces. 
An allusion, however guarded, to the emperor's 

* Oyid, Tristia 2. 497-520, pleads vigorously and not un- 
reasonably against the inconsistency wMcli condemned so severely 
his own erotic poetry, while it tolerated the more mischievous 
grossness of the stage. 

P 



226 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



personal habits or conduct was at once caught up 
and loudly applauded by the audience. So custo- 
mary was this species of innuendo that the most 
innocent-sounding lines might be taken as covert 
allusions to scandals, which it would have been 
treason to speak of, and the author might thus 
shelter himself under the plain meaning of his 
words. This kind of ingenuity was especially 
suited to the Italian mind, and was exercised not 
only in the theatre, but in the court of justice. 
For instance, Cicero tells us that on one occasion 
the court seized on the number 53, which a 
witness gave as the distance in miles of his farm 
from Rome, shouting '^ Ipsa sunt," remembering, 
he says, that this was the amount of money he 
had taken as a bribe. These allusions were intro- 
duced into the Atellan farce as well as into the 
mimes. They were not without danger to the 
author and actor. A luckless poet was burnt alive 
by Caligula for a line which seemed to contain a 
covert jest on himself, and an actor was banished 
from Italy by Nero for a hke offence. Helvidius 
Prisons, the younger, was executed by Domitian 
for a play which seemed to allude to the emperor's 
recent divorce. 



EDICTS A GAINST PL A YERS. 227 

The popularity of these indecent exhibitions, 
which had formerly been patronized only by the 
vulgar, was the subject of constant complaints by 
the praetors.* Tiberius, in one of those ebullitions 
of high-handed morality with which we are familiar 
in ancient and especially in Roman history, issued 
an edict expelling all players from Italy. This, 
however, probably belonged to that class of prohi- 
bitory edicts, which, as Tacitus says, were always 
being issued and never really enforced. It was 
impossible to deprive the people of so popular an 
amusement. The law seems to have been repealed 
by Caligula, and reissued at least once before the 
end of the century. 

The subject of these dramas, if they deserve the 
name, was often mythological, seldom historical, 
generally amatory. It was common to take some 
legend which contained materials for erotic scenes, 
and to elaborate them to suit the popular taste. 
The writers of the plays were generally men of 
small literary capacity ; but sometimes good poets, 
such as Lucan and Statins, did not disdain to turn 
their hand to this species of composition. We 
also hear of adaptations from existing works. For 

* Tac. Ann. 4. 14. 
P 2 



228 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME, 

instance, scenes from Ovid, very likely from the 
Metamorphoses, were introduced in the mime. 

A large part of the art of the pantomime con- 
sisted in dancing. The dance was, however, as 
much the work of the arms and of the whole body 
as of the feet. It was accompanied by gesticula- 
tion, which was brought to such perfection that in 
the pantomime proper the help of words and even 
of music was dispensed with, and the whole scene 
enacted in dumb show. If this surprises us, we 
must remember that the Italians have always been 
celebrated for their use of gestures. At Naples, at 
the present day, every emotion has its appropriate 
sign, and the inhabitants can convey the expres- 
sion of their admiration, defiance, or any other 
feeling, by the use of the hand only. The same 
custom prevailed at Rome, as is shewn, amongst 
other things, by the interesting description in 
Plautus (Miles Gloriosus, Act 2, Scene 2) of a man 
engaged in deliberation with himself. The panto- 
mimes further elaborated this system of signs, so 
that a clever actor had no difficulty in carrying his 
audience with him. The system had this advan- 
tage that the language of signs is common to all 
nations, while the actor was generally a Greek or 



TEE PANTOMIME. 229 

Egyptian, and his audience, perhaps, a motley 
crowd from all nations of the empire. The chief 
requisites for success in a pantomime were a hand- 
some and well-formed person, grace of movement, 
and power of adapting himself to any part, 
including those of women. The most celebrated 
dancers, Pylades and Bathyllus, possessed these 
attributes to perfection, and succeeding artists 
were accustomed to take their names as an 
assumption of championship in the profession. It 
was usual for an actor to take more than one part, 
sometimes without changing his mask ; but this 
was probably exceptional, and merely an exhibi- 
tion of versatility. 

The social position of the actor or dancer 
resembled somewhat that of the circus driver. 
Roman tradition was very strong against allowing 
actors any social status at all. They long re- 
garded all such professions with the same con- 
tempt that Englishmen until lately felt for them.* 
The law was called in to impose ignominious 
penalties on an actor who intruded in any way 

* See an amusing passage in one of Lord Chesteriield's letters : 
" If you are fond of music it is well : get a Frenchman or an 
Italian to twang and whistle to you ; but never let me see you 
with a pipe in your mouth, or a fiddle under your chin." 



230 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

into the classes above him. Corporal punishment 
was freely employed upon his person. He was 
ranked with slaves and barbarians. Any Roman 
citizen who appeared on the stage, except in an 
Atellan farce, was hable to be adjudged in/amis. 
As a natural consequence he generally was a slave 
or freedman, or a native of some country where 
his profession was more esteemed, such as the 
Greek colonies and the East generally. His 
notoriety did not do much towards raising his 
legal status, though in some cases a brilliant actor 
won for himself a distinguished position in actual 
life, and accumulated a large fortune. He might 
rise to high favour at Court, and hope for large 
presents in money from the emperor. In many 
cases he would attach himself to the imperial 
troupe, which was generally the best in Rome. 
In this way even political power was not out of 
his reach, and socially he might hold a brilliant 
position, and be courted by senators and magis- 
trates. In spite of this, however, his profession 
always remained under a ban ; and should his 
popularity cease he might find himself reduced to 
a position little better than that of an ordinary 
slave. 



COMEDIES AND TRAGEDIES. 231 

The mime and the Atellan farce were so much 
the most important kinds of dramatic exhibition 
that we need not detain ourselves long with the 
higher kinds of entertainment. The palliatoe or 
Greek comedies lingered on without much suc- 
cess ; tragedy was moribund, and only resuscitated 
by the help of brilliant scenery and imposing 
names, in the style of modem Shakespeare 
revivals. Tragedies were, indeed, written by 
hundreds ; but they were not intended for the 
stage, and the personal friends of the author were 
usually his reluctant auditors. 

Among the minor spectacles the most important 
were the athletic contests, commonly exhibited, 
as we said above, in stadia prepared for the pur- 
pose, but sometimes in the circus. It was a long 
time before these Greek amusements naturalized 
themselves on Roman soil, and in our period they 
excited a comparatively languid interest, though 
some emperors encouraged them. The contests 
were arranged in Quinquertia, in imitation of the 
Greek Pentathlon, and consisted of running, leap- 
ing, wrestling or boxing, throwing the quoit, and 
the javelin. We may also mention here the fetes 
and illuminations, generally accompanied by pre- 



SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



sents to be scrambled for by the crowd, which 
served to amuse the populace in the intervals of 
more serious spectacles.* 

The transition from public exhibitions to the 
bath is not so great as may at first appear. The 
public bath ought certainly to be classed among 
the amusements of the Roman populace. It 
occupied a very large amount of time in the life of 
every citizen, and perhaps the greater number 
indulged in it every day. This luxury" was a late 
product of Roman civilisation. The primitive 
Romans only took a bath on market-days,t con- 
tenting themselves ^xixh. more partial ablutions in 
the meantime. At the end of the republic more 
luxurious manners had come in. It was already 
the custom to bathe for pleasure rather than for 
cleanliness, and a bath-room was already a 
necessary adjunct of every large house. Public 
baths on a humble scale were already numerous. 
These were probably private speculations, and the 
price of admission w^as a qiiadrans. Agrippa 

* These sparsiones formed a regular part of the circenses. A 
refinement was to tlirow, not the presents themselves, but num- 
bered tickets, which entitled the possessor to a prize, sometimes of 
considerable value. 

t Sen. Bp. 86, 



THE PUBLIC BA THS. 233 

was the first to introduce one of those splendid 
structures which afterwards occupied no small 
part of the city of Rome. These thermcE were 
provided not only with air and water baths of 
every kind, but included gymnasia, exedrce, or 
lecture rooms for poets and rhetoricians, walks 
and plantations, fountains and statues, ball-courts, 
vestibules, porticoes, and probably libraries — 
everything in fact that the bathers could want 
to amuse them after the bath or prepare them 
for it. It is perhaps worth noticing that the 
example of Agrippa was not followed for a whole 
generation, the next thermcB being those of Nero. 
Merivale suggests that the greater publicity of the 
thermae offended the dignity of the Roman, who 
was still ashamed to strip in public except for the 
actual bath. If this feeling still existed under 
Augustus, it certainly disappeared very quickly, 
and before the end of the century the thermae 
became a most important and popular institution 
at Rome. Of the magnificence of these buildings 
it is impossible to speak too highly. The 86th 
letter of Seneca gives a glowing description of the 
plebeian's bath. The walls blazed, he tells us, 
with precious marbles, the chambers were adorned 



234 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

on every side with gorgeous mosaics, the water 
was discharged jfrom silver taps into marble basins 
— in fact, he adds vdth. rhetorical h}'perbole, our 
feet disdain to tread except on precious stones. 
It is well to \xy to form a mental conception of 
such a building, surpassing, probably, in magnifi- 
cence an5i:hing that Europe has now to show, and 
then to remember that there were several of these 
establishments in the capital, and all of them open 
to the meanest citizen on pa}Tnent of the smallest 
coin in the currency, or in many cases, absolutely 
gratis.* 

The Romans were not slow to avail themselves 
of the advantages thus thro^^'n open to them. We 
hear of persons bathing as many as seven times a 
day,t and a daily bath was, as we have said, the 
rule. The afternoon was the usual time of the 
day ; and Hadrian even forbade any except invalids 
to bathe before two o'clock.^ The courts of the 

* It was a common act of liberality to throw open a bath free 
for one day, or longer. This was sometimes provided by will, 
e.g.. Agrippa, Dion, 54, 29. 

t Becker is hardly justified in his stricture on G-ell for this 
statement. Besides Commodus, Gordian and Gallienus are said 
to have bathed seven times a day, and no doubt they had imitators 
in a humble position. Eemmius Palaemon, in our period, bathed 
^'i^ccphis in die." Suet, de Gr. 23. 

X Spart. Hadr. 22. 



ABUSE OF THE CUSTOM. 235 

thermoe were filled with loungers, and the exedrcB 
with ambitious declaimers and poets, who victimised 
the indolent bathers by reciting to them their 
compositions. The moral effects of this excess 
were, of course, highly pernicious. Besides the 
enervating effect of the bath itself, the decent 
rules which forbade the young to bathe with the 
mature, and those which prevented the two sexes 
from bathing together, were relaxed; till in the latter 
half of the century, it was quite common for men 
and women to make appointments to meet each 
other in the bath. It stands to reason that this was 
not done by respectable women, but the frequent 
mention of legislation on the subject shews how diffi- 
cult the practice was to eradicate. In most cases 
the women either had separate rooms, or were ad- 
mitted at different times to the men. Some bathing 
dress was worn by the women, but not by the men. 
Besides the baths at Rome, the use of mineral 
springs and health resorts was known to the 
Romans. Very few of the places which are now 
frequented by invalids within the limits of the 
empire escaped their notice. In Italy itself several 
places were visited for the sake of their baths. 
The chief seem to have been Puteoli, Sinuessa, 



236 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Lintemum, and above all, Baiae.* Baiae became a 
centre of fashionable life and amusement, which 
was frequented both by healthy and sick, and in 
the absence of the restraints which were still felt 
in the capital, every kind of indulgence was freely 
practised there, so that Seneca calls it ^^diver- 
sorium vitiorum." The bath was a Ytry favourite 
prescription with ancient physicians. 

We will conclude this chapter by a short account 
of the games and other amusements popular in 
this period. The chief time at which these took 
place was just before the bath. We have men- 
tioned the ball -courts and galleries which sur- 
rounded the great thermae. These were filled 
with players, anxious to take exercise before their 
bath. The nature of the games played in the 
sphceristena has never been quite decided, but it 
appears to have been rather puerile. Three kinds 
of balls were used, which were called respectively 
/ollis, paganica, and ///a trigojialis, the first being 
the largest. The commonest game was called 
datatim ludere, in which the players stood in a 
circle and threw the ball to one another to catch, 

* IscMa, the modern substitute for Baise, seems to have been 
little visited by the ancients. 



GAMES AT BALL. 237 

changing the direction unexpectedly, in order to 
take the receiver unawares. Plautus, however, 
mentions datores and f adores as the two parties 
in a ball-game. This would suggest some game 
more like cricket or rounders, but we cannot follow 
up the clue. Another game was called harpasta, 
which seems to have been a rough scramble for 
the ball. The phrase expulsim ludere probably 
refers to the datatim game. Another favourite ex- 
ercise preparatory to the bath was to fence with a 
blunt sword against a post. Dumb-bells were used 
for the same purpose of exercise before bathing. 

Field-sports were popular among some classes at 
Rome. Coursing was the most common, the hare 
being followed on foot, but often snared in nets. 
The wild boar was also hunted wath dogs. Fishing 
was a favourite amusement, both with bait and 
fly. The latter invention has been denied to the 
Romans by some writers, but it is proved by 
Martial.* 

A more quiet amusement was the game of morra, 
still played in Italy. One person held up one or 
more fingers for a moment, and the other had to 
guess how many he had held up. Hence the pro- 

* Ep. 5. 18, 6, 



238 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

verb for an honest man^ ^^One with whom you 
could play morra in the dark." 

Games of chance were extremely popular. The 
chief was played \\ith the ordinary dice (tesserce) 
and dicebox {fritilliis), and was generally a 
vehicle for gambling. When the game was TrXeta- 
Toj^o\ivla, in the Greek phrase, sixes was the best 
throw ; the more common mode of reckoning gave 
the first place to the ^^Ve?ius," where all the dice 
were different, and the worst to the ^^ Canis " (four 
aces). Besides the dice, games were played with 
knuckle-bones (tali), which were only marked on 
four sides. The words " Venus " and " T/ynis " be- 
long chiefly to these, which were more ^;.-sd than 
dice at banquets, in order to decide who ihould be 
the arbiter bibendi. Dice were forbidd< n by law, 
but, like other enactments of the same kind, the 
prohibition was disregarded. 

Two or three games are mentioned resembling 
our draughts or chess. One was called ^'latrim- 
culi^' in which the object was to take the enemy's 
pieces, and check-mate him (ad incitas redigere). 
There appears to be some doubt whether t^x^ game 
was decided like chess, or whether thii player 
who had most pieces left at the end was tli^ 



DICE-PLAY. 239 



winner.* Another game of the same kind was 
the '^ duodecim scripta,'' which appears to have 
closely resembled backgammon. It was played 
with white and black pebbles (calculi), and com- 
bined chance and skill. Men who could not use 
their advantages were likened to lucky but un- 
skilful dice-players, who made good throws, but 
could not play their pieces properly. The game 
of " noughts and crosses " was also played, " in qua 
vicisse est continuasse suos." 

We need not delay over children's games, which 
are much the same in every age and country. 
Hoops, tops, nuts,t and dolls were all familiar to 
the Roman child, and were sometimes held out 
as inducements to learning by the more gentle 
type of schoolmaster. We also hear of hide and 
seek (KpvTrriv^a iraii^eiv), forfeits, '* kiss-iu-the-ring," 
and '^ French and English." 

* The most probable explanation of the game is that given by 
a writer in the " Cornhill Magazine," yoI. 20. " Pieces were 
taken," he says, " not by being exposed to attack, but by being 
enclosed between two of the adversary's pieces, so that they could 
not be moved out of check. When no piece could be moved, the 
player was said, ' ad incitas redigi,' and lost the game." If this 
explanation is correct, the game must often have resulted in a 
" stale-mate," and in this case perhaps the player who had most 
pieces left won the game. Becker's explanation is substantially 
the same. 

•j- Nuts were iised instead of marbles. 



( 240 ) 



CHAPTER X. 

L U X U E Y. 

No feature in the life of Rome at this epoch is 
more persistently brought before us than the inor- 
dinate development of luxury. It was the feature 
which most impressed the Romans themselves, as 
we see by the writings of every author whose 
works have come do^vn to us. Juvenal, Seneca, 
and the elder Pliny, the two latter especially, are 
vehement in their denunciations of the unheard-of 
extravagance which had arisen in their age. Other 
writers, whose principles did not lead them to de- 
plore the change, were fully alive to it. It was 
recognized by all as the main characteristic of the 
time, as a social change, hardly less important than 
the political change which accompanied it. 

The observations of contemporaries are to a great 
extent borne out by the facts as far as we know 
them. There is no doubt that the century which 
followed the battle of Actium, comprising the 



GOETHE ON ROMAN LUXURY. 241 

reigns of the Caesarean family, did witness the 
highest point which luxury reached in the Roman 
Empire. The subject of Roman luxury in general 
thus belongs particularly to the period which we 
are considering, and deserves to be dealt with in a 
separate chapter. It is a very interesting subject, 
for the luxury of a nation is the measure of its 
material civilisation, as its literature is of its in- 
tellectual. The life of the wealthiest class supplies 
us with most of the materials which we want for 
comparing one civilisation with another, and we 
commonly even estimate the prosperity of a nation 
by the amount of money which is consumed in 
unproductive expenditure. 

The opinion of Goethe on Roman civilisation is 
well known. In more than one place he says that 
the Romans always remained parvenus, who did 
not know how to spend their wealth, and that 
their luxury was nothing but tasteless extrava- 
gance and vulgar ostentation. It will be the chief 
object of this chapter to examine this view in 
the light of facts, and thus to arrive at a just 
estimate of both the extent and character of 
Roman luxury. 

Before entering'into detail, one or two general 
Q 



242 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

remarks must be made. It has become a common- 
place to contrast the extravagance and ostenta- 
tion of Roman civilisation with its ignorance of 
some of the simplest means of comfort. It would 
be a hasty view which should condemn that 
civilisation as vulgar on this account. Our civili- 
sation is industrial; that of Rome was (to use 
Herbert Spencer's distinction) militant. An in- 
dustrial people both values comfort more, and is 
more apt to devise means to secure it. "We in 
England should also remember that southern na- 
tions have always cared less than ourselves for those 
minor luxuries which make up what we call com- 
fort; and that our ovni ideas of what constitutes 
comfort have undergone a rapid change during the 
last century. The discovery of America, and the 
opening of the whole world to trade, have con- 
tributed, with other causes, to raise our standard 
of the necessaries of civilised life higher than 
was possible to the Romans. We must then be 
fully prepared to find a gi'eat inferiority in these 
respects in ancient Rome, and to ascribe the defi- 
ciency not to the want of proportion and ^^ savoir 
faire" which marks vulgar prosperity, but to the 
causes above mentioned, which made it impossible 



3fA GNIFICENT B UILDINGS. 243 

for civilisation to advance much further on this 
side. 

The most imposing feature of Roman luxury is 
certainly the magnificence of the buildings. Here, 
if anywhere^ Rome may challenge modem Europe 
to rival her splendour. The world will probably 
never see another Colosseum, perhaps never a 
second Hadrian's villa. It would, indeed, be a 
childish error 'to measure the triumphs of architec- 
ture by size alone, a criterion which would set the 
makers of the pyramids at Cairo and Uxmal, and 
of the Great Wall of China, above the men who 
built St. Peter's and Cologne Cathedral ; but 
though the edifices of the Roman Empire never 
equalled those of Egypt in size, nor Gothic cathe- 
drals in design, nor the works of modern engi- 
neers in practical utility, they probably exhibit, 
taken as a whole, a more perfect combination of 
these three qualities than the world has seen at 
any other time. The public buildings in Rome 
itself hold the first place. The ruins of the 
Colosseum and of the Baths of Caracalla, both 
buildings raised for luxury, perhaps impress the 
modern inquirer more than any descriptions of 
sumptuous banquets or gorgeous dress. They are 
Q2 



244 SOCIAL LIFE IN RO:\IE. 

on a scale quite beyond any similar buildings now 
existing. They imply a command of labour and 
material beyond the resources of the richest 
sovereign or corporation. TAs the visitor tries to 
restore in his mind's eye the marble pillars, the 
statues, the profuse decorations in gold, silver, and 
costly stones, the fountains, arcades, pictures, and 
libraries, of the thermae, or the magnificence of the 
amphitheatre in its original state, even the majesty 
of St. Peter's seems to sink into insignificance 
before these pleasure-grounds of Caesar's subjects^ 
And all this beauty and magnificence was open to 
the poorest citizen, either absolutely gratis, or for 
the smallest nominal sum. It is characteristic of 
Rome that its noblest public buildings should be 
places of amusement rather than religious edifices ; 
these latter cannot compare \\nth the triumphs of 
mediaeval architecture, though many \Yi\\ still 
prefer the simple grandeur of the Pantheon, shorn 
as it is of its gilded roof and marble statues, to the 
tawdrier decoration of later churches. The won- 
derful roads and aqueducts which justly excite oiu* 
admiration for the people who produced them, 
do not come under the head of luxury ; but a 
reference to them here cannot be omitted, be- 



MANSIONS OF THE NOBLES. 245 

fore we leave the subject of Roman public 
buildings. 

The private houses of the wealthy nobles were 
on a scale corresponding to the public buildings. 
Like them, they date chiefly from the establish- 
ment of the empire. The palace of Lucullus, 
which, when it was built, was the finest house in 
Rome, was in a few years surpassed by not lees 
than a hundred new mansions, which vied with 
each other in size and splendour. Here again it is 
probable that modem times have failed to equal 
the first century of our era. The town house of 
the English or Continental nobleman is not now 
comparable to a '^ small city," however splendid 
its interior may be. There is not the need to 
accommodate an army of slaves under the great 
man's roof, nor does Western civihsation affect the 
spacious reception rooms and ante-rooms which 
the Roman nobles, like some Oriental grandees, 
always provided for their numerous clients and 
humble friends. On the other hand, the private 
apartments of the Roman were usually on a 
humble scale. The bedrooms and private sitting 
rooms seem to have been usually small and simply 
furnished. The splendour and ostentation was 



246 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

chiefly reserved for the atria and peristyles, which 
were adorned wath marble cokimns, wall-paintings, 
and statues, and must have presented a very im- 
posing appearance. There is something Oriental 
about the whole arrangement of the Roman house, 
with its open courts, its spacious halls, its prodi- 
gality of space, combined with very imperfect 
arrangements for privacy and comfort. If we 
attempt to make for ourselves a plan of one of 
these mansions from the very imperfect and con- 
tradictory records which have come to us, we shall 
probably end by echoing Martial's criticism of one 
of them. 

" Atria longa patent ; sed nee cenantibus umquam 
Nee somno loeus est ; quam bene non habitas."* 

The dining-room was, however, not usually for- 
gotten. In great houses there was commonly 
more than one triclinium of convenient size for 
entertainment, and these were of course decorated 
with great prodigality. Besides sleeping apart- 
ments, traces have been found at Pompeii of 
ante-rooms joining the bedrooms, which might 
serve either as dressing rooms or private sitting 
rooms.f In exceptional cases luxury invaded 

* Mart. xii. 50, 

f Mentioned also by Pliny (Ep. 2. 17). 



PARKS IN ROME. 247 

these chambers also, and the rich man provided 
himself with different bedrooms for different 
seasons, sumptuously fitted up with reference to 
varying temperature. But this form of luxury was, 
as we have said, uncommon. The bed-chamber 
was generally small and simple, and the ^' fireside " 
comforts neglected, as they always are where the 
climate permits and invites an outdoor life. 

We have mentioned the wide area covered by 
these domus. The space was not always entirely 
occupied by the series of courts and extensive 
offices which formed the ordinary ground-plan of 
the Roman house. The rich man of the early em- 
pire was sometimes not content unless he was the 
possessor of a perfect rus in urbe,^ and could sur- 
round his town-house not only with trees, gardens, 
and shaded walks, but even with woods and vine- 
yards, shutting out all the sounds, and even the 
sight of the streets. These parks in the city were, 
of course, few in number, and chiefly in the suburbs, 
or just outside the town. Many of the best houses, 
which were built on the Seven Hills themselves, must 
have had little or no gardens except within the 
spacious courts which the mansion itself inclosed. 

* Mart 12. 57. 21, 



248 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

It is not the least of the difficulties which sur- 
round the Roman topographer to reconcile the 
wide area occupied by these gi*eat houses with 
the comparatively small extent of the whole 
city.* 

The palaces of some of the emperors of course 
far surpassed the grandest private houses in size 
and magnificence. To pass over the more modest 
buildings of the first princes, the ^^ Golden House " 
of Nero seems to have been in design, if not in 
completion, the most stupendous dwelling-place 
ever built for a mortal man. Even if we regard 
the ancient descriptions of the size of this palace 
as greatly exaggerated, — and some of them are 
without doubt intentionally so, — it remains one of 
the largest royal houses ever built, and the internal 
decorations seem to have been incomparably mag- 
nificent. It was surrounded by parks, woods, and 
pools of great size, w^hich seem to have been 

* The statement of Becker (Gallus, p. 280, Englisli ed.) as to 
the great lowness of the Eoman palace seems to require some 
modification. Cf. Mart. 12. 57. 20, " Cui plana summos despicit 
domus montes," and i. 64. 10, "Celsre culmina rillre," &c. If a 
second and third storey were usual, the difficulty of accounting 
for the space required is diminished. Friedlander, however, is 
convinced that it never had a second storey in the middle, and 
sometimes not even in the wings. 



PALACES OF THE EMPERORS. 249 

entirely within the walls. The colonnades of the 
house itself extended a Roman mile in length, and 
crossed some of the chief thoroughfares of the 
city. The cities of the East were ransacked for 
masterpieces of Greek art for the interior. The 
walls shone with gold and pearls, and the roof 
rested on marble columns of enormous size and 
beauty. If we put any faith in the accounts 
which have reached us, we must admit that the 
world then saw the crowning monument of the 
luxury of rulers and the servility of their sub- 
jects. 

The palace of Domitian was the next in splen- 
dour to the Golden House. It was so profusely 
adorned with the precious metal, that a beholder 
might fancy the emperor possessed of the magic 
touch, which converts everything to gold. Plu- 
tarch and Statins give us glowing accounts of a 
magnificence very similar to that we have de- 
scribed in Nero's palace. 

The country houses of the wealthy Romans were 
not less magnificent than the to\^m palaces which 
we have just described. Every part of Italy was 
covered by their parks and villas. The beautiful 
coast of Campania, the Sabine Hills, the lakes of 



250 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

the north, and every other attractive district in the 
peninsula, were full of these seats. Most rich men 
were not content with one villa, but bought several 
in various parts of the coxmXry, which they visited 
at different seasons of the year. Immense sums 
were spent on the purchase of estates, and still 
greater on laying them out. Statins gives us an 
extravagant account of the extent to which hills 
were levelled and resei-voirs excavated to please 
the fancy of the owner. Even the sea was 
encroached upon by moles and earthworks, so 
that in the rather absurd phrase of Horace, the 
fish are cramped for room b}^ the diminution of the 
ocean. This particular fancy was chiefly indulged 
in the Bay of Naples, where the fashionable world 
carried on many of its amusements on the water. 
The ground about the house was laid out in an 
elaborate and rather too artificial manner, the trees 
being firequently cut into fantastic shapes, and 
planted in straight rows or patterns, while the 
flowers were also arranged with great care. We 
need not doubt, however, that the Romans shewed 
good taste in the arrangement of their gardens as 
well as in their choice of situations. The descrip- 
tions of Pliny and Statins, who are our chief 



COUNTRY HOUSES. 251 

authorities, shew that these writers had a keen 
appreciation of the simple beauties of nature. 
Phny has given us a description of two of his villas, 
the Tuscan and the Laurentine^ the account of the 
latter being admirably clear. The discovery of a 
suburban villa at Pompeii has thro\\m much light 
on his remarks and on certain obscure points in 
the construction of the villas. These and other 
minor sources of information are open to us, but 
no one has yet succeeded in drawing a satisfactory- 
plan of one these immense houses, which must have 
resembled a small village or a public institution 
rather than a single residence. We hear of rooms 
for every part of the day and each season of the 
year, of long corridors and verandahs connecting 
the detached portions of the house, of baths and 
tennis-courts, besides all the necessary out-houses 
and offices, very extensive in an establishment of 
slaves. Symmetry and compactness appear not to 
have been studied by the Roman architect, and the 
descriptions we have mentioned, though giving us 
a clear idea of each part, baffle our attempts at 
arrangement. With regard to internal decoration, 
it is interesting to contrast the comparative sim- 
plicity of Pliny's villa with the luxury and osten- 



252 SOCIAL LIFE IX HOME. 

tation displayed in that of Manlius Vopiscus, the 
subject of Statius' Eulog}\* The former was adorned 
only with the cheaper kinds of marble, and com- 
mon pictures and statuar}^ ; the latter blazed with 
gilded beams supported by pillars of African marble, 
and contained statues in silver and in bronze from 
the hand of ^dyron. Ivory and jewels were mingled 
with the precious metals in many a curiously 
wrought ornament; and streams of pure v>'ater 
coursed through eveiy room, diffusing a grateful 
murmur and pleasant coolness. Apparently as 
much care was taken in the decoration of a 
favourite ^illa as in that of a house at Rome. The 
comparative simplicity of Pliny's was owing to his 
limited fortune. We may suppose, however, that 
when a rich man possessed five or six ^-illas, as was 
often the case, he confined himself to decorating 
one or two only in the splendid manner above 
described. Very likely works of art and orna- 
ments were carried by the o^\TLer from one house 
to another. 

An interesting comparison has been made be- 

* Stat. Silv. 1. 3. Cf. also 2. 2, where he describes the Snrren- 
tine villa of PolUus Felix. The ?ame magnificence of internal 
decoration is describel, and the baths, temples, and porticoes 
close to the Bay are praised with great beauty. 



A COMPARISON WITH ENGLAND, 253 

tween the villas of the early Roman empire and 
the country houses of the nobihty in this country. 
The conclusion come to is that the Romans far 
surpassed us in the profusion of costly materials 
used in internal decoration, while in size the Roman 
villa probably sometimes exceeded the largest of 
Enghsh castles. On the former of these points 
there can be no doubt. Never, perhaps, except in 
the palaces of the Incas, has gold been so freely 
used in the decoration of walls and ceilings as at 
Rome; never, certainly, have marbles and ivory 
been so lavishly employed. On the other hand, 
the parks and gardens of the Romans seem never 
to have equalled those of modem England. Partly 
from want of appreciation of open park-land, partly 
from paucity of shrubs and flowers, neither park 
nor garden was in keeping with the splendour 
within. The flowers were of simple kinds, and 
lacked variety, but they were grown in large 
quantities, for the graceful custom of wearing 
garlands, and even the rites of religion, made a 
constant and plentiful supply necessary. Roses, 
lilies, and violets, were the only flowers cultivated 
on a large scale. Greenhouses and hothouses for 
flowers and fruit were first introduced in our period, 



254 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

and of course were soon very common. Winter 
grapes and melons were grown under glass, and we 
hear of forced* roses and lilies. Fruit trees were 
planted sometimes among the other trees, some- 
times in orchards. The Romans were well supplied 
with fruit. They had several kinds of apples, no less 
than thirty sorts of pears ; plums, peaches, pome- 
granates, cherries, figs, quinces, nuts, chestnuts, 
medlars, mulberries, almonds, and stravrberries. 
Their ornamental trees were few in number, and 
this doubtless led to the artificial shaping before 
alluded to, which was carried to absurd lengths at 
the close of the first century. The garden was 
always intersected by a path which could be used 
for riding, walking, or taking the air in a fitter. 
Porticoes for lounging in the open air, and elaborate 
baths, were comforts not likely to be forgotten in 
Italy. 

We naturally pass from the architecture and de- 
coration of the Roman house to its furniture. It 
is necessary here to repeat the warning given before 
against too hasty generalisation from a few in- 
stances of great extravagance. Fancy prices are a 
feature of every advanced civihsation. At Rome 

* " Festinatae," Mart. 13. 127. See also on this subject, Mart. 
8. 14 ; 4. 21. 5. 



COSTLY FURNITURE. ^ 255 

they never reached such a pitch as in modem 
England, where three thousand pounds have been 
given for a scarce old volume, but they were 
quite out of proportion to the ordinary scale of 
value. The chief crazes were for ornaments in 
silver plate executed by famous artists, for tables 
of the African wood called citrus, and for vases 
and other vessels of murra, which has been 
identified with porcelain, but is probably fluor 
spar. Corinthian bronzes were also bought at im- 
mense prices. As instances of the sums given for 
these articles, we hear that Nero paid a million 
sesterces for a cup of murra, and even Cicero the 
same sum for a citrus table. It was common to 
make large collections of these favourite orna- 
ments, especially of citrus tables, which were ad- 
mired for their beautiful grain, resembling a tiger's 
or panther's skin, or a peacock's tail. Seneca pos- 
sessed no fewer than 500 of these tables ! 

Men who did not care to be in the fashion might 
of course furnish their houses luxuriously at far 
lower prices than the examples just given 'might 
seem to imply. Imitations of all kinds, such as 
common tables veneered with citrus, and silver 
vessels falsely fathered on some old master, were 



256 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

as common as similar work in modern times ; and 
even genuine ornaments which did not happen to 
be in fashion were much less expensive. Still I 
think Friedlander goes too far when he says that 
a million sesterces was '' enough to furnish luxu- 
riously a house, perhaps a palace." He bases the 
statement entirely on a passage in Martial (3. 62), 
where this sum is given as the cost of the furniture 
of an extravagant man, who boasted that he had 
the best of everything. Martial, however, says 
nothing about a large house, and tells us expressly 
that the amount of furniture was small (710 n 
spatiosa supellex). It seems a mistake therefore 
to infer from this that ordinary furniture was ^^very 
moderate " in price at Rome. As an instance to 
the contrary, Pliny (Nat. Hist. 36. 24) says that 
when the house of Scaurus was burnt down by his 
slaves, he lost in the fire no less than a hundred 
million sesterces. Scaurus was a millionaire and 
excessively prodigal; still, so large a sum could 
hardly have been spent on a house unless materials 
and workmanship were dear. 

Some of these costly articles of luxury were 
exceedingly beautiful ; others were certainly in bad 
taste. The Corinthian bronzes and the silver work 



ART DECORATION, 257 

by Greek masters were of exquisite workmanship, 
superior without doubt in design and execution to 
anything now produced. The same superiority 
has been claimed for the work in glass and crystal, 
the colouring of which was an art thoroughly 
understood by the Romans. The remains of their 
glass-ware that have been dug up, faded and broken 
as they mostly are, testify to a very high degree 
of excellence. On the other hand, gilt and silver 
legs to the beds, and purple coverlets embroidered 
with pictures, seem to our taste rather barbaric. 
Pillows covered with silk, and mattresses stuffed 
with eider-down, reveal the effeminacy of the 
age. 

These luxuries were of course confined to a few. 
Wealth was probably more diffused in the middle 
of the first century than at the close of the re- 
public, but owing to its unproductive expenditure 
it failed at all times to call into being a well-to-do 
middle class. Plate was owned by a fairly large 
number of persons, and seems to have been valued 
as a mark of respectability, but the other extrava- 
gances we have mentioned were only to be found 
in the palaces and villas of the rich, who formed 
a very small fraction of the population, even at 

R 



258 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

Rome, and were rarely to be found at all in any 
provincial town. 

Next to the dwelling and its furniture, the chief 
instrument of human vanity is dress. In this 
respect the Romans compare favourably with 
modern Europe. The «implicity of primitive cos- 
tume was never displaced by the growth of luxury ; 
and in spite of the costliness of some of, the 
materials, it was almost impossible for a Roman to 
ruin himself, as many have done in modern times, 
in this most foolish form of extravagance. 

The original national dress of the Romans was 
the toga, a woollen garment of circular shape, 
which was folded round the body in a peculiar 
manner. At first the toga was the only garment 
worn by either sex, but long before the end of the 
repubhc it had ceased to be worn by respectable 
women, and men wore the tunica underneath it. 
It remained always the distinctive dress of the 
Roman citizen, and its use was forbidden even to 
exiles and persons who had lost their ci\ac rights. 
Its awkward shape, however, made it unsuitable 
either for work or amusement, and the custom of 
discarding it, except on certain occasions, was 
generally adopted. In the house the tunic was 



DMESS OF THE HEN. 259 

generally worn alone ; out of doors it was supple- 
mented with a pcenula or lacerna, the former of 
which was often worn over the toga, for warmth. 
Augustus tried to restore the use of the toga, but the 
love of comfort was too strong for him, and except 
at public games or ceremonies, and at court, it was 
not much worn. The tunic was a white woollen 
shirt, with purple stripes, these latter being by law 
a badge of rank, but frequently worn with a slight 
difference by others. Long sleeves and a long 
skirt to the tunic were considered effeminate and 
disreputable. Bright colours were popular at 
Rome, and lacernce of scarlet or purple were com- 
monly thrown over the shoulder in the streets, 
more for show than warmth. The toga was also 
sometimes dyed, but the coveted Tyrian purple 
was reserved for the emperor. It was the use of 
this dye that constituted a large part of Roman 
luxury in dress. There were several qualities in use, 
the best being exceedingly costly. A mantle dyed 
with true Tyrian purple cost, it seems, about 10,000 
sesterces. The inferior kinds of purple, and other 
colours, such as scarlet, blue, or green, were 
cheaper, but the cost of dyeing seems to have been 
always considerable. The material, however, sel- 



260 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

dom cost much, for the use of wool for the ordi- 
nar}^ garments was universal. Linen and cotton 
were manufactured, and pages were sometimes 
dressed in hnen tunics, but it was not till the later 
empire that linen became a regular material of 
dress. The introduction of silk was a new luxury 
in our period. It w^as brought from India, China, 
and other Eastern countries, and was worth its 
weight in gold. Garments woven of this material 
were almost transparent, and were therefore justly 
reprobated as indecent and unbecoming. Their 
use by men was forbidden by law. In our period 
stuff of pure silk was unkno^^^l, linen and cotton 
being mixed with it. Gold or silver tissue, though 
kno^\Ti, was little used. 

The dress of the wealthy Roman was therefore 
simple in form, and homely in material. Only in 
colour does luxury assert itself. Some extrava- 
gance was shewn in frequent changes of clothes, 
especially of the dinner suit, called sy?ithesis. A 
vulgar rich man sometimes changed this several 
times in the course of a banquet, nominally for 
the sake of coolness, but really for ostentation. 
But this form of extravagance was not carried 
nearly so far as in the middle ages and modern 



DEESS OF THE WOMEN. 261 

times. Nor do we find, as we might expect, 
trousers introduced at Rome. Delicate or effemi- 
nate persons wrapped their legs m bandages for 
warmth, but braccce were scouted as the most dis- 
tinctive mark of barbarism, just as their absence 
is among ourselves. Felt hats of the simplest kind 
were the only coverings for the head, unless the 
wearer preferred to hide his face under a hood. 

Hitherto we have spoken only of the men's dress. 
The women wore a tunic like that of the men, 
over which was a long robe reaching to the feet, 
with a flounce sewn on beneath. The same 
simple material was used throughout, but bright 
colours were usually worn in our period, perhaps 
almost displacing the old white stola. Purple 
seems to have been worn, but not of the imperial 
hue, and we hear of several other colours, such as 
green, light blue, cherry-colour, and violet. Pat- 
terns in colours were introduced about this time, 
and greatly admired. The process of '^ watering " 
fabrics seems to be alluded to by Pliny (Hist. Nat. 
8. 48. 74.) In gold and jewellery more extrava- 
gance was displayed. These ornaments were 
of the usual kind, earrings, necklaces, rings, arm- 
lets, &c., and were often executed with great 

S 



262 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

taste. A beautiful necklace was found at Pompeii, 
consisting of a gold twine supporting seventy-one 
pendants, and set with rubies at the clasp. Pearls 
were much valued, and very costly. One which 
Julius Caesar gave to Servilia cost him six miUions 
of sesterces. Diamonds were rare. The chief 
one we know of is mentioned by Juvenal as the 
property of Berenice, sister of Herod of Judaea. 
This was worn on a ring ; but Juvenal says in 
another place that it was fashionable to use the 
best jewels in drinking cups, a custom which caused 
the owner some anxiety at dinner if he could not 
trust his guests. We have already mentioned the 
strange and rather barbaric use of pearls and pre- 
cious stones in adorning the walls and ceiling of 
rooms. In Nero's palace there were private 
chambers almost covered with pearls. We hear 
also of jev\^els being worn on the shoes, and in the 
hair, probably attached to pins. 

It remains to speak of the lowest form in which 
luxury shows itself — the pleasures of the table. 
We have learnt to associate ideas of excessive 
gluttony with the early empire, and to regard that 
period as the acme of this brutish vice. A candid 
investigation will reduce this censure within juster 



LUXURY IN FOOD, 263 

limits. It may seem a poor form of apology to 
compare Roman greediness with the excesses of 
modern society, and cap the cena of Trimalchio 
with the menu of a Lord Mayor's banquet ; it 
will be more to the purpose to shew that such 
enormities v/ere confined to a small class during a 
short period, and that while the majority always 
fared simply, even the world of fashion was 
capable of repentance and self-reform. 

The Romans of the republic — ^before the great 
conquests had corrupted ancient simplicity — ^lived 
with an almost ascetic frugality. The national 
dish was a mess of porridge {puis), and the generic 
name of puhnentarium served for anything that 
was added to it as a relish. When a cook was 
employed, he was the cheapest and most worth- 
less of slaves. Drunkenness was rare, and wine, 
when drunk, was diluted with water. These 
simple habits began to be superseded after the 
Asiatic conquests Vv^hich followed the second Punic 
war. A vigorous stand was made by moralists 
and patriots of the old school against the growth 
of this extravagance, but neither precept nor legis- 
lation availed to check the advancing tide. Italy, 
which had formerly easily supported its thrifty 
S 2 



264 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

population, became the importer of delicacies from 
every quarter of the known world. Each new 
conquest added fresh luxuries to the gourmand's 
table, and gastronomy soon began to take rank 
as a science. It would be tedious and unnecessary 
to trace, in detail, the progress of the culinary art. 
It reached its acme in the first century of the 
empire, and declined after the accession of Ves- 
pasian. The period between the battle of Actium 
and the death of Nero witnessed the greatest 
excesses which it produced, some of which, from 
their unequalled displays of gluttony, have led 
historians to exaggerate the extent of the \ice in 
general. We should do the Romans great in- 
justice if we were to regard the orgies of Vitellius 
as characteristic of his countr\Tnen. They were 
the excesses of a miserable debauchee unex- 
pectedly thrust into supreme power, and are never 
recorded by Roman ^M.iters except with hon'or 
and disgust. It was not the custom of Roman 
officials to employ the legionaries in hunting for 
rare animals and birds for the table, though the 
gourmand seldom failed to profit by each new 
acquisition of territory. The stories told of 
Vitellius are not merely unusual but unparallelled, 



THE DINNER, 265 



unless it be in the lite of his imitator, Heliogabalus. 
Putting these aside, therefore, and taking the ordi- 
nary habits of the upper class as our standard, let 
us consider whether we are justified in regarding 
gluttony as a vice peculiarly characteristic ot 
Roman civilisation. The question will be best 
answered by a brief surv^ey of the meals which 
formed part of the ordinary day among the 
wealthy. 

Soon after rising, a light breakfast, called jenta- 
culum, consisting of bread, grapes, &c., was taken. 
Then followed a late dejeuner, or early lunch, at 
which meat, fish, eggs, &c. were placed on the 
table. The dinner (cend) began as early as three 
o'clock in the afternoon, and consisted of several 
courses. Eggs, shellfish of various kinds, fish, birds 
and vegetables, wild-boar and other joints, hare, 
capons, and fancy dishes of many kinds, were com- 
monly served up.* The meal was protracted for 
several hours. Pliny the Elder, a man noted for 
abstemious and laborious habits, rose from dinner 
'^ before dark in summer, and soon after nightfall in 
winter." This left at least three hours for the meal, 

* See Macrob. 2, 9, for tlie menu of a pontifical "banquet. The 
feasts given by the priestly colleges seem to have been very 
splendid, sometimes forming epochs in the study of gastronomy. 



266 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME, 

if it began at the usual time, and men of fashion 
gave much more time to it. Sometimes a banquet 
was protracted even till the morning light, 
although it had begun before the usual hour. 

It is obvious that we have here the habits of a 
thoroughly idle as well as wealthy and luxurious 
aristocracy. Business was over so early in the 
day that the whole a.ftemoon and evening could be 
given up to amusement. An invitation to dinner 
was supposed to include the whole day from three 
or thereabouts till late at night. And this inor- 
dinate space of time seems really to have been spent, 
if not in actual eating and drinking, yet generally in 
reclining at table. When we remember that a 
fairly substantial meal, the prandium, had shortly 
preceded the dinner, we must admit that the amount 
of food consumed seems to be excessive. And 
this is confirmed by Seneca and other wTiters. 
Seneca in a striking passage (Cons, ad Helv. 9), 
declaims against the gluttony that collects from 
Parthia and the Phasis delicacies which it disdains 
to digest — " Edimt lU vomant, vomiint ut edant. 
The coarse practice here referred to cannot be ex- 
cused as a common hygienic precaution ; for though 
it doubtless averted to some extent the consequences 



EXTRA VA GANCE AND OSTENTA TION. 267 

of excess, it could never have been recommended or 
practised after a moderate repast. If, as seems cer- 
tain, the Romans employed it habitually, we can 
only conclude that they habitually ate more than 
was necessary or wholesome. 

To turn from the quantity to the quality of the 
food consumed, we are less struck by the variety 
and costliness of the viands than by the vulgar 
ostentation which shewed itself in providing 
them. Dishes had a fictitious value through their 
rarity. Thus a mullet which when of the ordinary 
size was cheap, commanded sometimes as much as 
6,000 sesterces when it attained an unusual weight. 
Wild boars were served up whole. Peacocks, 
though not of very good flavour, were placed on 
the table with their tails spread. Dishes com- 
posed of the livers or brains alone of some bird or 
animal, were much prized, chiefly on account of 
their extravagant costliness. A banquet was not a 
success unless it was the talk ot the to\vn. The 
greater the waste, the more absurd the extravagance 
of the feast, the more certain was the giver to win 
the notoriety he coveted. Expense was so far 
from being avoided, that it was an object in itself. 
Hence some of the wildest stories of extravagance 



268 SOCIAL LIFE IX ROME. 

must be set down, not to gluttony, but to the 
slightly less degraded passion for ostentation. 
This vulgar craze was shown not less in the acces- 
sories of the banquet. Tricks and surprises, 
devised by the ingenuity of the cook, had the same 
object. Pantomimes, rope dancers, even gladiators 
were introduced between the courses. Flowers 
and ornaments of all kinds were employed with 
great profusion. The attendants and cupbearers 
were slaves chosen for their beauty, and bought at 
immense prices. In a w^ord, nothing was omitted 
which could gain for the host a name for reckless 
prodigality. 

It would be easy to collect instances from 
modem Europe of gluttony and extravagance 
seemingly greater than we hear ot at Rome. The 
variety of dishes at a modem banquet is much 
greater, the cost may be more, than in the early 
empire. But it is a mistake to argue from such 
instances that the luxury of the table is really 
greater now than then. Such a theory will not 
bear examination. Modem banquets, however 
much they may pass the limits of justifiable indul- 
gence, do not occupy half the entire day, and the 
triumphs of the kitchen are not an approved sub- 



EXTENT OF THE EVIL, 269 

ject of conversation in ordinary society. If we 
have gone further in ordinary discoveries, the 
Roman gourmand was inferior only through cir- 
cumstances, not from taste or moderation. So far 
as we can see, after making all deductions for 
exaggeration and peculiar cases, the wealthiest 
class at Rome must bear the reproach of excessive 
addiction to the pleasures of the table, and of 
coarse vulgarity in the pursuit of them. 

The extenuating circumstances must be sought 
elsewhere. In the first place, the number of 
persons able to give first-rate banquets was neces- 
sarily very small ; and outside this narrow circle 
it appears that the old frugal habits had not 
entirely disappeared. In the provincial to^vns, 
and among the middle and lower classes in the 
capital, men were content with the modest fare 
which is most suited to the climate of Italy. Meat 
was eaten sparingly, and the staple diet consisted 
of grain, fruit, and eggs. The second vindication 
of the Roman character on this head is to be found 
in the fact that it was still capable of self-reform. 
The example and precepts of a frugal emperor only 
brought to light a change in public opinion which 
was ready to shew itself. Many causes had com- 



270 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

bined to produce a feeling of satiety and disgust 
at the manner of life which society had been 
leading. Men were anxious to rise above the 
coarse animalism ot the last fifty years, and a 
sumptuary reform seemed the first and most 
obvious step. Another cause was at work in the 
diminution of wealth, which was now perceptible. 
The policy of the empire had closed some of the 
avenues of fortune, and the privileged class, which 
had so long lived and rioted on the capital of 
the world, began to find that their mine was 
not inexhaustible. Accordingly a decided, though 
gradual, movement in the direction of simplicity 
began after the accession of Vespasian. Extrava- 
gance ceased to be fashionable. Many curtailed 
the expenses of their table from principle, after 
the manner of the Stoic philosophy ; others sought 
to please their guests rather by the good taste and 
appropriateness of the repast than by its profusion 
or expense. Counter reactions indeed took place 
before the end of the century, but never produced 
so much excess as had been witnessed in its 
earlier part. 

We have now considered Roman luxury in its 
most important aspects, as they appeared in the first 



SUMMARY. 271 



century of our era. The most important omission 
is that of slavery, which was of course the greatest 
instrument of luxury, and gave a character to all 
the rest. The subject has, however, been treated 
of in a former chapter, and it must be sufficient 
here to refer to what was there said of the use of 
slaves for purposes of luxury. We should now 
be able to form some generalisations from the facts 
stated in this chapter, and to estimate the char- 
acter and extent of Roman luxury at this period. 
From the material point of view we have said that 
in magnificent buildings, both pubhc and private, 
later centuries have failed to outstrip the earlier 
empire. In internal decoration we mentioned the 
extraordinary profusion of rare marbles and pre- 
cious metals, and the passion for certain favourite 
articles of furniture or ornament. We drew atten- 
tion to the semi-Oriental character of the house 
arrangement, and the sacrifice of comfort to osten- 
tation which seems to characterise it. Passing to 
dress, we admired the comparative simplicity of 
attire which we find at Rome, and noticed especially 
the universal use of the commonest materials. 
Lastly, we deplored the coarse luxury of the table, 
and on comparing the first century with the 



272 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

nineteenth, decided that though the apparatus of 
gluttony was less, the tendency to excess and 
over-indulgence was greater than it has ever been 
since. From the social point of view, we have 
said that luxury, in most of its forms, was con- 
fined to a small class in the capital. This is true, 
but, notwithstanding, there is a decidedly demo- 
cratic side to Roman luxury. Its most splendid 
monuments, the baths and amphitheatre, were 
built for the delectation of the masses. Its grandest 
public works, its roads and aqueducts, were works 
of universal utility. If, in one sense, it was re- 
stricted to a smaller number than in modem 
societies, in another it was more accessible to 
every one than has often been the case since. 
We must not lose sight of this good side of the 
subject, for it is both significant in itself, and a use- 
ful corrective of the indiscriminate censure which 
has sometimes been heaped upon pagan civilisa- 
tion. Self-indulgence and extravagance shewed a 
more unblushing front before the rise of Christianity; 
but it is doubtful whether religion is any real 
check to the luxury of our great capitals. The 
main features are the same as those of Roman 
civilisation, the chief difference being in the indus- 



CHARACTER OF ROMAN LUXURY. 273 

trial type stamped upon our society as opposed to 
the semi-Oriental character of the Roman. Our 
luxury is the product of national labour, the 
spending of wealth created from year to year by 
the industry of the people ; that of Rome was the 
luxury of a dominant caste, which found itself 
almost suddenly in command of the resources 
of three continents, resources which it used 
unscrupulously for its own benefit, without 
attempting to restore the waste. It is true that a 
luxurious class is alway unproductive, but the 
complete severance of that class at Rome from the 
producers had a strong influence on its character, 
and caused those vulgarisms of extravagance which 
give colour to Goethe's criticism quoted above. 
On the whole, however, we think that the German 
poet's censure goes too far, and that we are not 
justified in passing a sweeping condemnation on 
the luxury of the first century of our era, on the 
ground either of excess or of bad taste. 



274 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 



CONCLUSION. 



We have now completed our sketch of Roman 
society in the first century. The magnitude of the 
subject has compelled us to treat each part of it 
in a cursory manner, but it is hoped that no im- 
portant or characteristic feature has been omitted. 
We ought now to be able to stand back, as it were, 
from the picture, and form some kind of general 
impression from it. Shall we agree with Gibbon, 
who considered that under good emperors, such 
as the series beginning with Nerva at the close of 
our period, '' the human race " was more happy 
and prosperous than at an}^ other epoch in the 
world's history ? The idea will hardly meet with 
a defender at the present day. For who are " the 
human race " whose condition was so enviable ? 
The small coterie of milHonaires, who wallowed in 
self-indulgence, and drained the life blood of the 
empire ? Or the mass of poor Itahans, of heavily 
taxed provincials, of miserable slaves, who do not 
indeed fill a large space on the page of history, 



ANCIENT AND MODERN. 275 

but who Still had the right to be reckoned among 
human beings ? Was their lot so happy or so 
prosperous ? And can even the intellectual volup- 
tuary, such as Gibbon doubtless had in his mind, 
excite our envy, surrounded as he was by crowds 
of slaves and dependants, and by every means of 
gratifying alike the highest and lowest pleasures ? 
Surely not. We may grant, probably we should 
grant, that the Roman understood the art of 
living better than we understand it ; that he 
knew better than we how to make the most of all 
the pleasures under the sun, from the noblest art 
to the vilest indulgences : we still feel that our 
civilisation is the higher of the two, and that we 
would not, if we could, exchange our restless 
moral consciousness, our troubled political activity, 
our busy competitive industry, for the unabashed 
hedonism, the selfish indifference, the wasteful 
indolence of the Roman of the early empire. 
With all its brilliancy, that civilisation lacked the 
vital spark; it was soulless, faithless, and essen- 
tially unprogressive. Rome had outlived her 
ideals ; her patriotism and her religion had ahke 
become obsolete, and the renovating principle was 
not to be found within her own pale. It is only 



276 SOCIAL LIFE IN ROME. 

indistinctly that we can trace, in the first century, 
the growing influence of that contact between the 
rehgious consciousness of the East and the intel- 
lectual activity of the West, which was destined to 
determine the character of mediasval and modem 
civilisation. 



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the English universities, in the departments of phUology and criticism, whose 
exemplary diligence is folly equalled by his singular acuteness of penetration, 
Lis clear and temperate judgment, and his rare and absolute fidelity to the Inter- 
ests of truth." 

THE NEW YORK EVENING POST.— "One of the most splendid and valuable 
gifts to literature that has for a long time been offered. The work has all the 
freedom and strength of an original, and the grace of language is only equalled 
by the profound scholarship displayed In the translation." 

THE CLEVELAND HERALD.— "Prof. Jowett's knowledge of Greek language 
and literature and of the spirit of the ancient Greek life and philosophy is pro- 
found. The rendering is accurate, the style easy and natural, and the very full 
explanatory and critical introductions to each section are of invaluable assistance. 
In the reproduction of this masterly translation the publishers have performed a 
valuable service to American letters." 

PLATO'S BEST THOUGHTS. As compiled from Professor 
Jov/ett's Translation of the Dialogues of Plato. By Rev. 0. 
H. A. BULKLEY. A new edition, crown Svo, $1.50. 

FROM THE PREFACE.— "The present volume presents in the most accessible 
form the wide range of subjects upon which Plato dwells, and exhibits him in all 
his varied aspects of philosopher, moralist, socialist, logician, rhetorician, 
scientist, and critic. The extracts here given have been carefully collected, so as 
to be unique and integral in thought. While those who are desirous to peruse the 
complete translation of Prof. Jowett will doubtless do this, yet there are many 
others to whom this volume will be welcome as giving the finest wheat of Plato in. 
a ready, readable form. Even the reader of the fuller work may be glad to have a 
compendium of Platonic thought so available for cursory perusal and casual quo- 
tation." 

THE EVANGELIST.— "This volume makes the best things in Plato aecesslblf 
and available, and its index gives it the character of a dictionary." 



STANDARD TEXT BOOKS. 



SOCRATES. A Translation of the Apology, Crito and parts of 
the Phsdo of Plato, containing the Defence of Socrates at 
his Trial, his Conversation in Prison, with his Thoughts on 
the Future Life, and an Account of his Death. With an In- 
troduction by Professor W. W. Goodwin, of Harvard Col- 
lege. 12mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 

TALKS WITH SOCRATES ABOUT LIFE. Translations from 
the Corgias and the Republic of Plato. 12mo, cloth, 81.00; 
paper, 50 cents. 

A DAY IN ATHENS WITH SOCRATES. Translations from the 
Protagoras and the Republic of Plato. Being conversations 
between Socrates and other Creeks on Virtue and Justice. 
12mo cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 

The first of these volumes sketches the personal character and 
moral position of Socrates, together with Plato's own speculations ; the 
second volume presents in forcible and elegant English the practical 
philosophy and pure morality of the Gorgias and Republic, accom- 
panied by an able introduction and explanatory notes ; while the last 
volume has for its object to give a vivid picture not so much of Plato's 
Philosophy as of the age in which he lived, and to enable the reader to 
enter into the every-day scenes of Athenian life, and to become, as it 
were, an actual participator in the action. 

PROFESSOR GOODWIN.— "I have advised the translator to publish these 
versions of Plato, in the belief that they will be welcomed by many to whom both 
Plato and Socrates have hitherto been merely venerated names ; especially by 
those whose interest in knowing what Plato and Socrates really taught has been 
doubly checked by ignorance of Greek and by the formidable aspect of Plato's 
complete works, even in an English translation." 

W. D, HOWELLS, \nHarx>er's Mcmthly.—"Th2A ' Day In Athens with Socra- 
tes,' those ' Talks with Socrates about Life,' and that first volume containing the 
Apology, and the Phjsdo, all strike a note so familiar, deal with questions so liv- 
ing, that they seem of present concern and modern fact. Eminent Scholars, men 
of much Latin and more Greek, attest the skill and truth with which the versions 
are made ; we can confidently speak of their English grace and clearness. They 
seem a 'model of style,' because they are without manner and perfectly simple." 

THE NEW YORK EVENING POST.— "We do not remember any translation 
of a Greek author which Is a better specimen of idiomatic English than this, or a 
more faithful rendering of the real spirit of the original into English as good and 
as simple as the Greek. Such a translation renders the reading of the original 
well nigh superfluous." 



A HISTORY OF 

ROMAN Literature, 

From the Earliest Period to the Death df Marcus Aurelius. 
By CHARLES THOMAS CRUTTWELL, M.A., 

Fellow and Tutor of Merton College, Oxford. 
One Voto, erown 8vo, with Chronological Tables, et9., Cloth, $2.5t/ 

"Mr, Cruttwell has done a real service to all students of the Latin 
language and literature. . . . Full o-f good scholarship and good 
crit icism. ' ' — London AiJienaium. 

*♦ Nothing at all equal to it has hitherto been published in England." 
'—British Quarterly Review. 

** Mr. Cruttwell has produced that rare thing — a manual which con- 
tains all necessary facts and references to all indispensable authorities, 
and which, far from being repulsively dry, is rather attractive, and apt to 
make the student go on reading longer than he originally intended." 
•—Londoft Saturday Review. 

*'Cruttweirs History of Roman Literature is a book to delight in, 
a book to take up and read with the same zest with which we read a 
thoroughly good essay upon a modern author ; only it is at least very 
rarely that any one person treats a considerable number of modern authors 
with the skill with which Cruttwell has treated every prominent author 
that Rome produced,'* — Literary World. 

*' Mr. Cruttwell has given us a genuine history of Roman literature, 
not merely a descriptive list of authors and their productions, but a well 
elaborated porirayal of the successive stages in the intellectual develop- 
ment of the Romans, and the various forms of expression which these took 
in literature." — Nation. 

** The whole work has those* solid qualities of scholarship which wil) 
commend it to students." — Hartford C our ant, 

*' No student's lilirary is complete without this handy volume. — N. E. 
jfournal of Education. 

"A volume of sterling value for the student or for tfie mature man 
of letters. — Phila. Bulletin. 

" The volume is a rich mine for the student of Latin history or 
literature. '''—Boston Transcript. 



*** The above book for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent, prejyaid, u;poM 
receipt of price^ by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 

743 AND 745 BroadwaYj New Yoric 

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